FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
Midday Mobile - Live from Dauphin Island and the ADSFR with Mayor Jeff Collier and Filmmaker Ben Raines - July 19 2024
There will be no personal nor direct attacks on anyone and I would ask that you please try to keep down the loud cheering and the clapping. There will be no booing and no unruly behavior. With that, this is painful and it will be for a long time. After all, these are a couple of high-stepping turkeys and you know what to say about a high stepper. No step too high for a high stepper. This is Midday Mobile with Sean Sullivan on FM Talk 1065. Well, Sean's a tough guy. I mean, I think everybody knows that. You know, Sean, he took some licks, he hangs in there. Yeah, what's wrong with the video we got? I mean, the deal we got drank pretty good, don't it? Did you hear what I said? So, this is a bad council. I had no doubt about them. That doesn't suck. If you don't like it, you're bad. Last question. Were you high on drugs? Last question. Kiss my ****. All right, away we go. FM Talk 1065 and Midday Mobile live from the Sunset Capitol of Alabama, beautiful Dolphin Island for the 91st Alabama deep sea fishing rodeo. Can't wait to see more y'all throughout the weekend. Gave away a lot of FM Talk 1065 goodies yesterday and we'll have some more around here throughout the weekend. So make sure to say hi. And it's always nice. I don't know. Do you give you give permission for the likes of me to come onto the island? I don't know if that's a you know, usually a sound judgment, Mayor Collier, but each year and you know, routinely you let me on this island. So, I don't want to say we got to let you over at least every rodeo, right? I mean, it wouldn't be rodeo without you guys being here. But no, you guys are welcome all the time and welcome to the island. Yeah, but you know, this is my home away from home. I love it. And it's amazing to think about you and I've talked about this from the oil spill to now and the challenges that you had and the way you took what was a very dark time and created something great out of it. I mean, just the now now some of us can say, I wish you hadn't brought all that attention to Dolphin Island, Mayor, but you did and you really changed the face of it. Yeah, well, and I think we can say it's the old lemonade out of lemons, right? I mean, that's really what we're doing here. And I think we're very fortunate. We've been, you know, the oil spill was a horrible time. Of course, not only the lives that were lost at the site, but all of the impacts that the oil spill had and the unknowns. I mean, I remember back then, the biggest concern was what is going to happen. You know, we didn't have any template, right, to know what was going on. And you know, you hear people saying, oh, you know, the Gulf could be shut down for 10 or 20 years. And it just was really a scary time, quite frankly, particularly for a community like ours that's on the front line and one that relies very heavily on ecotourism, right? I mean, you know, you come to the Dolphin Island, if you come to the island, you're either going to be going to the beach, you're going to go fishing, boating, all the different things. And it was all gone. And you know, just a matter of a short period of time. And it's amazing that it has come back. And we've been fortunate to your point to, you know, make use of some of the restore act funds and other other things. And and trying to, you know, make the island certainly more user friendly. One of the things we've done a lot to add new boat ramps here at land near landing. There's a lot of work going on as we speak. We've purchased tremendous amounts of property for preservation, habitat restoration, but yet also trying at the same time connect the public to those natural resources that are so abundant here in this area. So it's like checking all the boxes, you know, in course, the aloe bay project that's coming up here in the not too distant future, that's going to be more focused on eco on on the economy. But I just I'm really, really so pleased that we were able to to get to this point. And we're not to the end. I mean, you know, there's a lot more work to be done. And we just finished the East End Restoration Project. I mean, we can and that yet talk about that one too. What did y'all do there? I mean, yeah, well, the the East End Restoration Project, we just well, actually, it's not totally finished. The sand placement is finished. It was a little more than a million cubic yards of sand. And certainly, I've shout out to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. They actually wrote the check for that project about $23 million. And it helped restore the island from the very east end of the island, south of Fort Gaines, all the way west to almost to the golf course. It's about a mile and a half or more. And so we we filled in all that area with sand. We put dunes. We've they're now currently as we speak in the planting stage, planting seals and other vegetation. We got sand fencing out there. And so it's really made a huge difference in that particular area. And one of the focuses of that project was to protect the bird sanctuary, you know, which was very vulnerable to saltwater intrusion. Obviously, that's a freshwater ecosystem. And the two don't mix, right? And so it's just that is a magnificent project. The other one I point to is graveling. That's what I was saying, graveling bait. I mean, yes. How many acres were added there? I think it was around 70 give or take acres. And so they put we constructed about 55. I think it was of these mounds, marsh mounds. You know, when I was growing up around here, of course, that was a few years ago, Sean, but that whole area was just a huge, you know, marsh area. And over years, it's degraded tremendously. And now that we've been able to go back and put those mounds in planet with all the vegetation and thing, in fact, we just did a replant here just a few weeks ago, because some of the plants didn't make it last year, you know, we had to drought. And so some of the plants in the higher parts of the mounds didn't didn't survive. And so we came back and replanted. But ever since those mounds have been in place, I mean, immediately, about a year ago, the birds just really took took advantage of it. I mean, the Audubine group counted at one time over 850 nests. And that was about no more than two months after they were put in place. And so we got a lot of nests again this year, too. You had a number of species out there. So I know some very amateur naturalists. I know some. But I was went to Dolphin Island Sea Lab camp with my son. We went to a weekend camp down here. So we did and we kayaked in amongst in Gravelin and went through. And so the bird, the ornithologist there, the number of other species, I'm like, yeah, that probably this. How many you see? I said, I think four. I'm looking at skimmers. Look at this said, how about this that we were like 18 species of bird. And we hadn't paddled the kayak, but, you know, hundred yards. Yeah. Oh, and no question. It's just unbelievable. You know, you can drive down the road down there by the airport or kind of like having to. And you'll just see those birds out there swarming, you know, and I've been around here a while, but I don't know what the species is showing. I just know them as birds, right? But the birds know they like that project. And the other thing is too, you know, it's going to not only replenish the marsh, but it's going to offer a level of protection to some of the homeowners in that area as well. So, again, checking a whole lot of boxes. The one thing that we would like to caution people about, though, it's they're really not made, you know, these mounds aren't made for walking. You know, we really encourage people to view them from a distance. Like I said, paddle boarding in between, uh, but try not to, you know, and get in there and stomp on the plants or bird nest. And so, we just need to kind of give that area a chance to mature before we start, you know, getting in there too soon. Yeah. The kayak and through there's fun. That's a great place to do that. You and I've talked about that every time, like, I'm a powerboat guy, but I'm also a kayak guy. You know, if you have, I like to launch a bill to go and crank up and go offshore and go fishing. At the same time, some afternoons, I like to just kayak around and enjoy it that way. Yeah. We see, I see a tremendous amount. Kayaks have really grown in popularity. I see it every day around here. I mean, you know, go off the island or coming back and you'll see kayaks all over the place. And that's just their whole new industry that's coming around. You know, that's just part of our, the broader ecotourism footprint that we have here on island. And we're just, you know, we're doing everything we can to sort of exploit that, you know, to not only, you know, to just create more, you know, of those types of opportunities. And I just think we're really, it's just a success story. And I'm real, you know, proud to be part of it. And that's all I am as a part of it. But it's, it's great to see those kinds of things happen, not only, you know, as a, as a mayor, but as an island native as well. Yeah, not only island native, Mayor Collier, you'll, you keep joking about how you've been here a while. Yeah, if you've been here the whole time, your family, your people have been here since when? Oh, fifth generation. So a few years, right? A few years. Do the bad. Another thing I think about too, we've talked about it before, the growth on the island. We've got the environmental projects, but we have the economy, the new stores in the, but there's a, there's a seesaw here. You don't have, like if somebody says, you know, go just develop as much as you can, you don't have that. You have this balance. And I guess that makes it, I think, tougher than just overall growth. Well, it is. And just unbridled, right? And so, but you're right. You just said my favorite word, that's balance, but it's very hard to achieve because everybody has their own definition of what balance is, right? But I think we've done a really good job of that. I mentioned this not too long ago, I forget where I was talking, but I said, you know, when we first incorporated 1988, which I was a member of that first council, we kind of adopted the motto of managed growth at that particular time, but it all kind of means the same thing. It means, you know, you've got to be sustainable, right? You've got to be economically sustainable. So you can maintain the island as we know it. You can't manage yourself into not having success for the career in the business. But the balance act is trying to make sure that while we're, we're making sure that we can survive economically, we also understand and have to realize we have economy is directly tied to a healthy environment. And therefore, the emphasis has to be there as well. So it is challenging because, you know, you've got a lot of different competing interests. We've got a lot of folks moving here. Our population's gone up probably close to 50% now in the last 10 years. So we're getting a lot of new homes, things of that nature is gone up 50 nearly 50% in the last 10 years. Yes, I mean, the population at the last census, which was in 2020, was right at 1800, which I know doesn't sound like a lot, but just not long before that, we only had about 1000 people or 1200. And now, you know, that census is four years old. So I'm thinking we're probably pushing 2000 people, you know, as we speak full-time residents. Wow. And you know, part of that, so at the beginning of last hour, I talked to Commissioner Blankenship and he and I were talking about water quality projects and, you know, this idea that he and I've talked about that ribbon cuttings for boat launches and restoration, all these things are fantastic. They get the cameras, but you know, you don't have a ribbon cutting for sewer stuff, but I would say it undergirds everything else we're doing is the water quality. And he mentioned too about funding for for sewer facilities here on the island of tertiary expansion that that's a big deal. I mean, you grow and there's all the fun part of growing, but then you got to deal with it. Yeah, it is. Yeah, one thing connects to that. But yeah, the the Dolphin on Water and Sewer Authority is getting a grant to rebuild the whole new wastewater treatment facility, which is, as he said, is going to enhance the water quality, but the product that goes out in the water. So, you know, all those things are interconnecting, you know, all of these things that we're doing, they all have some synergy and it's it's really going to pay huge dividends. It already is. And, you know, for years to come, you're only going to see that. And of course, we have to remember too, they all we talked about the oil spill and the money, those funds are going to continue coming through at least 2031. And so we're not to the end of that funding cycle yet. And then the projects will continue on for probably 10 or 15 years after that. Right. So, we're kind of almost in the middle of this this projects and things that will be going on as a result of the oil spill with that huge growth the islands had when you'll work on this project or others. Are you project like, okay, we grew 50% in this period of time. Do you project forward to try to have infrastructure get ahead get ahead of the people? Yeah, well, you always do. I mean, of course, most of the projects we've done and we've had our engineers and other experts involved with that. So all that's built into to the planning stage. And yes, so the short answer is yes. It is. And you know, the other important project, I don't know, Commissioner Blackship mentioned, but the causeway project. So I want this one fits in your definition where you said these projects that are have these great environmental objectives. At the same time, there's just an infrastructure objective to right. So tell people who can ever goes, where are they doing? I know. I see that all the time. And every time I let cheese, you know, we've already explained this like a hundred times. But anyway, yeah, the causeway project is actually headed up by Mobile County. And it's a tremendous project. And while the emphasis is on habitat creation and restoration, what it's going to do more, well, I shouldn't say more importantly, but importantly to us as island residents and having that causeway be our only ingress and egress, it's going to give a higher level of protection to the causeway. And my vision is that it's going to give us maybe a little more time to get out of here, pre hurricane. And on the back end, it should help us get back to the island quicker after a hurricane. And so but beyond the fact that it's going to help protect the roadway, as we just said, it they're going to be creating all these these habitats along with it. So it's just it's a really another really good project. This is going to be great. Well, you mentioned h words, but I think a number of times I've texted you when I'm trying to get to and from the island when there's a even a tropical storm. Yeah, it used to it would just be driftwood that would come up and over from, you know, from a wind coming out the East put it on to the causeway. And it took time to get the vehicles down here to clear it off, even though there was no damage with no water over the road at that point. It was an extra hour or two before that can be opened. And that's true. And and this, you know, this project's not gonna nothing's nothing's going to stop the major storm, right? Right, but say a tropical storm with that. Correct. Yeah. But at the same time, the impact should be less and the cleanup should be quicker. So you have overall, you're going to have a shorter downtime. And that that's that's as good as we can hope for, because I've been, you know, doing this for quite a while. And I just know that when we have a storm, the one thing we have to do first is get our people back home. And once we do that, then we can go ahead about our business and take care of business. But until you get people coming, having access, it's it's a challenge. It's people want more information about everything going on down here from projects like that to to what movies can be played on the West End. How did where do they go online? I would send them to the talent off an island website, uh, talent off an island.org. And there's other we've got a dolphin island app. If they don't have this, a free app, hopefully they can take advantage of that. And we got a Facebook page as well, talent off an island Facebook page. And, uh, anyway, so lots of information out there. We always have a number of different events. This is one of the big, you know, the rodeo certainly is one of the bigger events, if not the biggest event we have all year. And hopefully the weather will get a little better for the next few days and the folks can come and check out all the fish. Absolutely. Mayor. Thank you as always. Appreciate having you on. We'll talk again soon. Thanks, Sean. All right. Dolphin on the mayor. It's Jeff Collier and we're on his island. He let me back on it. It's a amazing thing even after the ban that went into effect. He's let me back and I enjoy it. All right. Coming right back more of our live show from the Alabama deep sea fishing rodeo on Dolphin Island right here on FM Talk 1065. This is midday mobile with Sean Sullivan on FM Talk 1065. Hey, yeah. Welcome back midday mobile and we are live at the 91st Alabama deep sea fishing rodeo coming up before the end of the hour as well. Looking forward to more cool events for the outdoors in September. Our friends at G and D farms have their outdoor expo. We're going to be there throughout the event. So hopefully you can get out and see us at the grounds the 13th, 14th and 15th of September. So before I get out here, I'll give you some ticket. Give you a chance to win a four pack of tickets to come to that event in September. But I look up here and I smelled them before I saw them. I was talking to the mayor and I smelled fish and I look up as my buddy Ben Reigns coming in just straight off catching fish into the studio, the mobile studio. Yeah. Well, that's bad if I smell like fish. Well, you know, I looked up at all the bends in here. Listen, I'd rather I'd rather smell it. I did get a wash down a fish this morning and I got the natural wash down. I got that storm that storm that came up from the south. Yeah. So gave us a wash down. That was my shower for today. You just heard Mayor Collier talk about projects they're doing on the island. And it is interesting if you can have a you see things from I think both sides like I do as well. If you can have an environmental project that has an economic or infrastructure benefit, there's a lot better chance of that environmental project sticking around. Well, yeah, and getting funded in the first place. Yeah. You know, that's that's the the it's cool. The callsway project up here for the I mean, here we have putting in what will be nursery for so many, you know, so much in the Sessuary. At same time, it keeps road open to get people in and out of the island. Right. Right. And that's good. But they need to get it finished. Yeah. You know, they had they've had some environmental problems with that. That big we had that storm and that blew that big mud wall and it actually killed several people's oyster farms. Did it from here? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Along along that are on Mobile Bay. Oh, okay. To the north there. Yeah. And so that was that was kind of a drag for those folks. I think they're they've been compensated. But you know, I talked about this years ago, too, that if we jump start this process, so oysters filter, my marine grasses filter, is there a point where we can get because this water, if we weren't here, wouldn't look like this. It would be I mean, we would have sometimes if we get muddy, but it would be a lot clearer, right? Well, well, so we got a couple of things going on. One is when we when we dug up all the relic reefs to use that old ancient shell to make roads, right? That was a big, big problem. And then when we had all the mud come in from construction, that mud, the clays around here have electrical charges. And so they repel each other. So they won't settle on the bottom. And so that's why we don't have grass. Is that why it stays? That's why it stays in the water. That's why. So if you put a mask on in Mobile Bay and go lay on the bottom in three feet of water, six feet of water, you'll see about a six inch layer of suspended sediment that's just floating there. So every time the wind blows, that stuff jumps up into the water. That's what it kicks up. That's why the bay turns so muddy so quick when the wind blows. Can we, can we, you know, we've done better, obviously work to do, but we've done a lot better keeping that sediment out of water, whether it be streams have management zones and timbering operations or, you know, silencing and construction projects. Right. Did we get it to a point where we could get if the oysters to build and start, you know, start a process. We crank the engine before that thing run. Yes. If we could get, if we could get a head of steam going that was big enough, you know, it's kind of, if we can get the oysters going, then they might clear the water enough for the grass to come back. Yeah. And then the grass comes back and it helps and then you have more oysters. And that sediment layer is why the grass can't come back because that first six inches, the grass, if it tries to come up, it doesn't get any light because of that sediment layer. So it's kind of a, you know, so we've seen this in other places, Chesapeake Bay right now, they have a lot of oyster farms and around the oyster farms, they have halos of clear water. So you can actually, you know, you can see this, this halo effect where the oysters are clearing the water out around them and then grasses are coming back around them. So that's kind of a way forward to start thinking about as, you know, because we're growing great oysters here. You know, I was in the four seasons in New Orleans and guess whose oysters I murder point from Alabama. Don't give Lane anything to get fired about. We're coming right back more mid-day mobile. Erica Thomas joins us as well coming up. You're listening to Midday Mobile with Sean Sullivan on FM Talk 1065. Call Sean now at 3430106. Welcome back FM Talk 1065 and Midday Mobile live from Dolphin Island here at the rodeo site for the 91st Alabama deep sea fishing rodeo and we will continue to talk about fishing down here and go fishing. You know, it's kind of a different radio station. We do some broadcast and then we slip out and, at least me, slip out and go fishing. So enjoy it that way. All right. Let's check in on the other side of the bay from the Baldwin County side who has, listen, I guess it's fair because y'all were inundated during Independence Day. So maybe it's a little bit easier over there. Not so many crowds. Erica Thomas from 1819 News. How are you? Howdy, Sean. I'm doing good. I hope you're enjoying yourself at the rodeo. It's a good thing that you're there because I was just looking into some issues with Alabama shrimp industry and how they're kind of impacted from imported shrimp. And I just read the 85% of shrimp consumed in the US is imported from other countries. And that's just fine-blowing to me knowing what's going on, especially where you are right now. I mean, we have a huge shrimp industry here in Alabama, and we really need to start protecting it. So I think it's great that you're doing this event, just kind of promoting fisheries in Alabama altogether. But we really need to start taking care of our people. Yeah. And the fish in this thing, I've been fishing this since I was probably 14 years old, something like that, 14, 15 years old, fishing the rodeo. I've been doing broadcast down here for probably 15 plus years. So it's a tradition for me. You mentioned the shrimp thing too, and I think it's interesting. So some of the legislation being moved here for labeling is important because I think if you get, I think, and this is just me thinking, I think if you let people know what they're getting, like the idea of saying, the idea of saying, hey, stores or hey, restaurants, y'all can't sell imported shrimp. I have a problem with it. I do have a problem of how those imported shrimp providers have gotten benefit from US government. Now they can flood the market. I have a problem with that. But I don't want to tell private industry what they can and can't do there. What I do want to say is let the customer know whether this is Gulf shrimp or Alabama shrimp. And I think the market, us people, will make the decision if it's a dollar or whatever, they'll pay it to support their neighbors and to make sure they're getting very high quality shrimp versus something that might not be as high quality. I mean, absolutely. It's only fair to tell people where they're getting their food from. No matter what, what kind of food it is, you know, whether it's seafood or or beef. For example, you know, Mason Hill farm, you know, you know, Joey Mason, he he's working all the time right here in South Alabama in Grand Bay. All the time to provide high quality local beef. So this is just another example of how he could be impacted by imports as well. These are people. These are neighbors. These are Alabamians that are working to put food on our tables. And I think most people would would much rather support that. Not only for themselves and their own families to give their families the food they deserve, but also the local economy, you know, help keep jobs going and and keep Alabama running. Yeah. And just I think you you said it. If you make people aware, say, Hey, this is, you know, this is something just this this stuff here is imported this stuff here is Alabama or Gulf caught. I think the market does you don't have to have some law that says you can't have imported shrimp in. I think the market will decide it. Although there is a lot to talk about. And I've talked about with Representative Chip Brown, how the systems the U.S. went out and went to other countries and got them started in the aquaculture world and then opened it up for them dumping shrimp in the U.S. So that's a whole other story to it. But it's it's it is a thing we need to fight for in doing that. I think you let the people fight by giving them the information and hopefully we'll see more of that. I'd like to hear from restaurant people too. I've opened this up before. I know a friend of mine is a restaurant tour, but others out there there in this world. Is that unfair or does that or y'all on board with that? I would love to hear from y'all on that. Have you heard from any to say what they say? Yeah, I'm sure their prices are impacted by what what they choose to serve people. But again, when we when we support our local people, our local industry, it's an investment into the future in for Alabama. So I think they would probably be on board with a local option if if they had that. Just joining us on the air. Could tell us from 1819 news and this. Okay. So this story here. I honestly I've spread just headlines and they've changed so often I kept saying, well, I'll get around to reading the story. What the heck is going on with the the drag queen story hour story du jour, the one that they said was going to be at what at Oyster City, and then they had to move it to a book. So what what's going on? Give me the timeline on this to help me understand what why I should care about this. Well, this all started when the mama taught who a lot of people know on TikTok. She backed out of a reading that was supposed to be on July 12th. It was a reading of the book called Finding My Rainbow. The author is from Coleman, Alabama. He lives in Birmingham now. He's actually the city of Birmingham's LGBT liaison. And he wrote this book about his experience growing up as a as a child when he started questioning his sexuality. And so mama taught was scheduled to to read that book at Oyster City Brewing Company in Mobile on July 12th. Right before the event, she just backed out. She didn't leave an explanation. But this author came forward and said, well, she she backed out because she got really serious threats against her family and personal threats. She was she was scared because there's a large group of people in Mobile who are voicing their concerns about children coming into a brewery and being exposed to any, you know, sexual type content, which sexual, I mean, this book doesn't have, you know, nudity. It doesn't talk about sex. It just talks about sexual preference and that type of thing. And there's just a large, a large group that they've been protesting, drag shows at this place, you know, they've come forward to get exposing children to these topics altogether. And so mama taught, you know, backed out of the event. Well, then they they replaced mama taught with another with a drag queen. And then right after that, they came on Facebook, Oyster City Brewing, they said, this event's canceled. We're not going to have it because we had pretty severe threats. And I'm wanting to say, you know, I've been threatened for things that I've reported about just just telling the facts. I get threats from all kinds of people. And I just, I think that that's wrong. I'd no one should threaten anybody with physical violence or, you know, no one should be stalking people and harassing them online. There's a way to go about doing things that that's accessible. And there's there's a way that's not. So Oyster City canceled the event. And then the author of the book said, okay, we're going to have it at books a million. Well, then they canceled the event and allegedly for all the same reason. However, when we talked to mobile police, I talked to them to find out, you know, were these threats reported? What type of threats are they? Were they violent threats? They said, no, we didn't get any reports to this. So they did not report anything to mobile police. Well, then I spoke to a customer who talked to a bartender at Oyster City and they said the threats were really something more along the lines of they're going to do burnout in the parking lot. Which to me, doesn't sound like something to scare people about, you know, and to cancel an event like like like they have done. So I'm just presenting the facts here. That's that's what happened. That's what they said happened. And apparently Oyster City is now, which has been an advocate for the LGBTQ community as far as allowing them to have these drag shows and have events. They are now being turned against the LGBT community. Some of them have turned against the brewery, saying, y'all are no longer allies for us because you canceled this event. So it's just it's just a mess. A lot of back and forth, a lot of rumors. But it looks like there's no real severe threat, at least not to rise to the level of someone calling police. So that's that's good news, I think. Absolutely. People want to check out that story and more. Tell them how to find you online. You can just go to 1819news.com and check out. We have a lot of incredible reporters all across the state covering some of the things like this that you probably won't hear anywhere else. But stuff that that you need to know about, we love the people of Alabama. We love this state. We like to highlight the great and wonderful things about it too. So please feel free to also email us at news at 1819news.com. All right, great stuff, Erica. We'll talk again next week. Thank you. God bless. All right. There goes Erica Thomas from 1819 news. And let's do this too. Let's take color number six as well at 3430106. Your chance to win a family four pack to the GND outdoors Expo coming up in September. 3430106, color six. Good luck. This is midday mobile with Sean Sullivan on FM Talk 1065. All right, so welcome back FM Talk 1065 and midday mobile live from the 91st Alabama deep sea fishing rodeo. And we'll be here throughout the weekend, of course, show ending here in just minutes, but we'll be here and maybe a little time for you to stop in and see. Anna, do you have any fish in it? Mobile Bay coins and fun joy. You have any fish, silver rounds or anything we could have engraved? You get anything with the fish style in the shop? I think I do have some fishes, they're sprout and I think there's bats. Excellent. That's all you need in this world. And Sean, okay, well, there you go. We've talked about these earlier in the week, the silver rounds that you can do. Like talk about this, like you can get a silver round, just plain, you can get an image on them, but you can also have them engraved. Yes, you can have them customized with a different message. There's even like if you're talking about fishing and hunting, there's a whitetail deer silver round, you can have engraved, you know, first buck or something like that to commemorate it. A good idea. I like that. And then you got the value, of course, in the precious metal. All right, people want to come by and talk with you about gift ideas or buying precious metal as a hedge or something like that. How do they find y'all? We're at 2204 Government Street, just a block west of Little Fire Temple Pool and Church. And we'll talk to you next week, Anna. There she goes. Anna, check it in for Mobile Bay coins and find jewelry. And also, congratulations to Carl Smith, the winner of that four pack of tickets to the GND Outdoor Expo, going to be the ground September 13th, 14th, 15th. And we'll see out there going to be doing this show out there and the outdoors show out there. So it'll be a lot of fun. And we'll get Lee and Starla Davis come back on with us soon and talk more about that event. But coming up in September, so put that on your calendar and congratulations, Carl, on winning those tickets. And I smelled them before I saw them again. My buddy Ben Reigns joining me. Did you just go away fish? Well, I turned it in and they took it to do some samples. So it wasn't quite ready for the, you know, how they do it. So so I have my, my coat check going to get my fish back. All right. So you're, but you're, day one, I'm already way to fish in. And on a day with lightning, that's, that's a good start to the rodeo. Yeah, it is a good start to road. I'm going to be a home, but from here in just minutes, because heading north, go to the nappies. I'd like to say congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. You got to get your nappies. Are you going to go? Are you going to wash up before the nappies? You're going to come in smelling like fish? Well, the fish is a good program. Yeah. The fish is a good pro. You know, I, this is, I've won a few of these in each time in a different category. The first year I won category this year, a filmmaker filmmaker, which is great. The first year I won, it was, um, Mr. Thomas Porter. Oh, okay. Well, you know, that's, that was the next year. But, anyway, the newspaper wouldn't let me go. Uh, the Mobile Press Register. They wouldn't let me go to the nappies. Yeah. Yeah. No, and I, I've always regretted that they, you know, they did that. But that was the year that they did the, uh, the preview video that showed all the newspaper brass as Hitler and Hitler staff. If you remember that, you got to give it to Lanya. That's great. That's always great. I can't wait to see what the movie looks like tonight. Um, so yeah, but congratulations on the filmmaker side too. Congratulations to you. Thank you. Thank you. Um, filmmakers side here every time you're on with me and our talk, we're like, or the other day, I was talking about with Congressman Carl talking about the underwater forest and I mentioned the movie and people are like, man, but I just want to see the movie and it's not, you know, you had some showings here. Yo, it's been on the internet. It's on YouTube. It's on YouTube in a bunch of different places. So if you Google the underwater forest, you will watch the movie. And what we're talking about here, if you've missed been not talking about over the years is, uh, getting this protection for the cypress dumps that are, this always goes away. Cause if I was blown away when they were 30,000 years old and 50,000 years old, you're saying they're now 70,000 years, 70,000 year old cypress dumps out in the Gulf. What used to be, uh, your bottom line of hardwood forest, you know, during the ice age. Yeah, it would have looked just like the Delta looks today. And these are down there. And they're, they've been preserved by Bud and Sand over on an exposing, you know, and the idea of this project is just to say, hey, nobody can do which Ben and I probably learned. I remember getting my patty certification when I was 13 or 14 years old and they told you you had salvage rights. And I was so excited. We thought we're going to be, we're going to be these pirates of the bottom. Oh, yeah, let's change it a little bit. Yeah. But, but the idea is to protect those cypress dumps down there from being taken, everything else that we want to do. Yeah. We can do. It's just protection. Don't want to take the stone dive on them. It's just let's not take away the natural resource. Yeah. So that's the, so that's what the protection is. Yeah. Yeah. And it's a unique, it'll be a unique marine sanctuary. And it's a big deal for Alabama to have a national marine sanctuary off our shores. It's the only one within hundreds of miles. You know, you got to go 100 miles off shore of Texas to get to the flower banks. But I mean, who can go to that? I mean, honestly, and it's a two-day trip, right? You know, so nobody, you know, that's, that's not a easy get. And the other one's in the keys. You know, and if you're in the keys, well, you're a long way from here. So this is going to be a really cool thing for people. I'm really excited. I hope it all goes through. I hope it makes it out of the Senate, but it's looking really good. And then what would that look like? Let's say it gets voted through and said then like, what is, what is that? The protections are immediate. Well, we will have with a lot of fanfare, we will release the coordinates to the site. And people will be able to go out there. Right. And I think the site is too. Somebody asked me the other day and I said, you know, I hadn't checked with Ben lately on the, I know it depends on, you know, what's uncovered and covered. I kind of said it was akin to, yeah, there's Rex on Fort Morgan. You see the boat? You don't see the boat. It's just like that. And it's like when you go out to fish a pyramid and it's not there because it's buried under nine feet of sand. Same deal. Don't start with me at the other day. I was like, I've just told my friend, it was like, I'm right on the number. It's not here. But how those ideas move. Yes. And Katrina, I don't want to give the formula what happened in Katrina and we finally found them where they moved him is bonkers. But how big is the footprint of the underwater forest? Well, the exposed area, the main exposed area is about a half mile square with stumps that you can see. And to be fair, I have not, we, at one time I swam huge transects all over. And that was many years ago, a decade ago. So I don't know the exact footprint, but we've now found a couple other exposed areas and we'll release those as well. They're within the zone that's being protected. So there are a couple other outcroppings of stumps separate from the main one. Right. Because that can't be that, I mean, it's, no, no, you know, I wonder if you use the ground penetrating radar or something like that if you could get down to the sea. Well, we've done that. And we found more, we found some off petty boypass that are buried. Okay. You know, they're under 10 feet of sand. Right. But when LSU came and did the mapping of the of the area, they figured out the signature for stumps buried 10 feet underground. So they look like this is the right attack. Okay. So now we've been able to find more areas, which is very cool. That is cool. So, but at that point, the coordinates like the definition of the boundary or somewhere in the middle, that number, that GPS, we've published in people. Exactly. And when the state put out those new inshore artificial reefs, they actually made a zone around the underwater forest area so that so they didn't put reefs giving us a clue. Well, it's a little clue. Yeah. It's one of those needle in the haystack things, though. You know, I do. It's you know how it is. I mean, you could be 10 feet away from something the Gulf and never notice, you know, on your bottom machine or your fishing rod or whatever. Side scan, side scan. Yeah. Yeah. Side scan. It's good stuff. Yeah. Before we ramp up today, too. So, I mean, the movies, you can go to YouTube. If you look for Ben's movies underwater forest, but you can look at carnivorous kingdom, you can yeah, you can see them on my personal YouTube and carnivorous kingdom. If you want to see that, watch it on my YouTube, not on the Alabama public TV YouTube because you got some more mines in 4k. Yeah. There's only two more more kays in any more years. You got you got and when it's a bug that's one inch long blown up to take up your whole TV, it's cool if it's in 4k. It is indeed. And those were out there and many more, of course, you know, the, I guess, the quintessential piece of this point of America's Amazon to go on forward, but I want to talk before you finish up. Well, let me make, I got a request for your viewing listening public rather. I am working on a new documentary about Mobile Bay called The Last Estuary. And what I really am looking for is Jubilee footage. I'd like historical footage, but current footage, but it needs to be, if somebody's going to film it with their phone, their phone needs to be sideways. I don't want any vertical, but if any listeners out there have good Jubilee footage from some of these recent Jubalese, they could become filmmakers. They could get their name and lights in the credits. How many kays they got to make it? Well, 4k is better, you know, for sure. The best stuff is what's going to make the cut. But truly, I'm trying to get some good stuff. So if anybody out there is listening, I would love to hear from them. But this film once again is called The Last Estuary. And basically, the premise is that Louisiana is washing away. We're losing all that marsh. Mississippi ruined their marsh with the longest fake beach in the world. And so our marshes in Alabama, we're going to be the nursery habitat for the Northern Gulf of Mexico. So we got to protect them. And that's the, that's what the film's about. All right. Well, y'all, if they want to email, just eat, go to, how do they email? They can email me at reignzorama@gmail.com, reignzorama. So my name reigns plus O-R-A-M-A at gmail.com. All right. And if y'all can't figure it out. Or they can message me on Facebook or whatever. Or send it to me. I'll get it to Ben. Get it. Send it to Sean. Forget my email address. No, go to Sean. I shouldn't have let the cat out of the bag. Yeah. But send it there. And so that'll be part of it. And you have a time frame on that. Well, as soon as I can get it done, I'm trying to, I'd like to have it out just after New Year's this year for the spring. That's my goal. Good. So let's hope it happens. Well, we'll talk about it before then. But send those Jubilee videos in to Ben. And we'll do this all again on Monday. Big thank you to the rodeo folks, Mayor Dauphin on. Everybody else for having me down. Good luck, Sean. I hope you win this year. Good. I hope I win too. That's what I was supposed to say, I hope you win. No, I hope I win too. I want you to wish ill because then I'll have better shot. Yeah, it's true. That's how that Irish luck works. Yes. All right. Fine bomb is next, y'all.