Beach Balance

Producer Sarah Wood Hunt | Photographer Ed Hall

Yoga pursuits require balance, strength and comfy workout clothing. Lululemon athletica has just the line for the rigors of the sport. Mark White, owner of MBody Yoga, and Lori Paris, a personal trainer and group fitness instructor at Under the Sun Fitness and Bailey’s Powerhouse Gym, are fit to a “T” for their acro-yoga workout. Lori wears the reversible Groovin’ Crops ($79) and wicking fabric Athletic Deep V Tank ($46) with reinforced straps. Mark sports fast-drying Downdawg Shorts ($62) and the preshrunk Cardio Short Sleeve Tech ($59) with welded shoulder pocket for his iPod Nano. The full line is available at lululemon athletica in Jacksonville. (904) 645-7904.

See more new products from area stores in the July issue of Water’s Edge, on newsstands now.

Archaeologist uncovers Ancient City’s Past

Story and Photo by Allen Thigpen

Wading above the hull of a submerged ship, Chuck Meide and his Florida State University archaeology classmate celebrated with glee. Weeks of searching along the St. Marks River, near Tallahassee, Florida, had resulted in their first-ever sunken discovery. The possibilities raced through their minds – could it be a pirate ship, a Spanish trading vessel, possibly a burned cotton boat?

“We had no idea what it was, and it was exactly right then when I said, ‘Wow, this is what I want to do,’ ” Chuck says. It was, they learned, a wooden-hulled merchant ship from the the mid-19th century.

Today, the Jacksonville-born archaeologist serves as administrative director for the St. Augustine (Florida) Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program (LAMP). A career that took Chuck across the globe to England, Ireland, the Caribbean and across the United States, ultimately brought him back home to North Florida.

“I remember thinking, ‘if I had that gig, that’d be it for me. I’d never leave,’ ” says Chuck, who succeeded LAMP founder Billy Ray Morris as director in 2005.

When he was 2, Chuck and his family moved to Atlantic Beach, Florida, where he spent most of his childhood. A self-proclaimed water baby, he recalls a love for history. His father would entertain him with tales of Spanish conquistadors, and how, at one time, they could have marched through their very backyard.

“I guess I always have had a love of history, a love of the sea and a love of water,” says Chuck, who earned his Ph.D. in historical archaeology from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. “And, well, here you go. It’s the perfect combination.”

At LAMP, Chuck implements programs for exploration and interpretation of the historically rich waters of St. Augustine – America’s oldest port – and its surrounding area, adding to the city’s historical narrative and fostering a public appreciation for the region’s 400-plus-year story.

Through a system of high-tech methods, magnetometer readings, sonar imagery and GPS, Chuck and his staff, along with local volunteers, scout out potential shipwreck sights for diving and excavation. Their work primarily takes them to inland waterways, such as Salt Run, the inlet separating Anastasia and Conch islands.

“Basically, we’re doing the same thing as they are on CSI,” Chuck says. “In a very meticulous way, we’re taking apart, piece by piece, a site or an area where some historic event happened, and we’re using every means at our disposal, from low-tech methodology to high-tech forensic science to try to reconstruct what happened.”

Chuck thinks of shipwrecks as time capsules, an underwater archaeologist’s “dream laboratory” of maritime history, allowing the people of today a glimpse into the past.

“It’s kind of a microcosm of society,” he says. “It’s almost like a mini city, because every aspect of social life needed to be in place in a vessel for it to operate. Everything from a social hierarchy among the crew and officers to the physical stuff you need to stay alive at sea.”

Chuck and his staff work to involve the community in their efforts through public outreach programs – diving and archaeology classes with local high schools, a colonial boat-building program and internships for high school and college students. He also oversees a field school with Flinders University in Australia, which sends students to St. Augustine to study maritime archaeology.

“We really feel like we’re doing great things, preserving our history, engaging kids and members of the community with maritime history activities and keeping the story alive of America’s oldest port. We’re all behind that mission in a very heartfelt way.”

Read about other coastal personalities in the July issue of Water’s Edge, on newsstands now.

Sisters’ Jewelry inspired by the sea

By Marisa Carbone Finotti | Photographer Ed Hall

Calling herself a beach girl is no problem for Conway Peek. After all, the Virginia transplant lives just three blocks from the water, in an old beach cottage on top of one of the highest sand dunes in Atlantic Beach, Florida.

Conway, along with her sister Arpie Starke, says the beach is a good fit for their livelihood, a jewelry company called deColmesnil Designs that features freshwater pearls.

“We wanted to work with pearls in a young, fun, funky kind of way,” Conway says of the company she and Arpie started three years ago. “These are not your grandmother’s pearls, but they’re still very nice, elegant pieces of jewelry.”

That means necklaces made from biwa-style pearls, coin pearls, seed pearls, potato pearls and baroque pearls, all designed by Conway and Arpie.

The sisters started the business as a way to stay in touch when Arpie moved to China with her husband, who works in the tobacco industry. On a shopping foray in Beijing, Arpie walked through the pearl market and realized she had found something special.

She bought some raw strands of pearls and asked Conway, back in her Atlantic Beach studio, to create some jewelry designs. They traded ideas via the internet. Then Arpie found a jeweler in China to make a prototype of Conway’s designs.

“When we’re pleased with the designs,” Conway says, “we have them handmade in Beijing.”

Arpie now lives in Richmond, Virginia, but before she left Beijing, she was careful to forge solid relationships with vendors and to hire friends on the ground there to do what needs to be done firsthand.

“It’s a lot easier than flying back and forth,” Conway says.

DeColmesnil is a French name that’s been in their family for generations, along with the names Conway and Anne Robertson Parker – Arpie’s full name.

One of the company’s best sellers is a design that came to Conway while she was walking on the beach. It’s a blue crystal, glass enamel starfish in the middle of a freshwater-pearl necklace.

“I get stopped by strangers whenever I wear it,” says Conway of what’s become a signature piece in their collection.

The sisters also started a popular children’s line that features seed-pearl necklaces and pearl rings for kids, and they’ve added a line of semiprecious gemstone jewelry. They’re also making their first trip to the Atlanta gift mart this summer.

But the part of the business Conway enjoys most is the photo shoots for the company’s yearly catalog.

“This is when I get to really be creative,” she says.

For one shoot, Conway loaded up her beach wagon with jewelry, conch shells and bleached white coral and pulled it to the ocean. Then she laced a baroque pearl necklace inside a conch shell and placed it in the surf.

“The pictures looked so good we put it on the cover of our catalog,” Conway says. “The beach and our jewelry … it’s just a natural fit.”

The kids’ line of deColmesnil Designs is available at Patina in Atlantic Beach, and more information about their jewelry is available at www.deColmesnil.com.

Read about other coastal personalities in the July issue of Water’s Edge, on newsstands now.

McCumber makes his mark

By Mike Bernos | Photographer Ed Hall

Quick! Name the only two Jacksonville natives to have won The Players. One is David Duval – No. 1 in the Official World Golf Rankings in 1999 before a guy named Tiger Woods burst on the scene and virtually banned all impostors to the throne. Soon after, David disappeared.

The other is Mark McCumber, who turned professional in 1974 and won 10 times on the PGA Tour between 1979 and 1994, including The Players in 1988. Since turning 50, Mark has played the Champions Tour successfully, but intermittently, because most of his time is spent designing golf courses with his company, Mark McCumber and Associates. Their presence in Northeast Florida and coastal Georgia has been prolific. Among his designs are Queen’s Harbour, Marsh Creek, Osprey Cove, the Ravines, South Hampton and The Golf Club of Amelia Island. In addition to his stateside work, McCumber has projects in Japan, Korea and Costa Rica.

“I try to include the hallmarks of aesthetics, playability and strategy,” says Mark. He blends the natural environment with a true test of the game for all skill levels.

Among his favorites are South Hampton, Osprey Cove and Queen’s Harbour, the latter because it was so pristine with a classic natural habitat at the time it was built.

“The greatest courses, such as Augusta National or Pebble Beach Golf Links, have all been given a palette from nature from which to work – elevation, a body of water and vegetation,” he says. “Locally, we see that at Osprey Cove with the St. Marys River and its vast, expansive views and Queen’s Harbour with the Intracoastal and majestic live oaks.”

With most of his PGA Tour wins and golf course projects in Florida, Mark thrives in the state like an alligator in a swamp. He’s also won at Doral twice, the Pensacola Open and finished second at the Honda Classic.

He grew up on the 14th hole on one of Jacksonville’s classics, the Donald Ross-designed Hyde Park, and taught himself to play golf there, picking up tips from the course’s old-timers. After school, he’d sneak under the fence and play four holes before dark. When he was older he’d pull crabgrass from the greens with his brothers in exchange for free rounds of golf.

At a time when the number of rounds being played has been declining, leading to fewer courses being built (less than 100 are being planned in the United States in 2008, according to a recent study), Mark, like most of his peers, is concerned.

“Courses have been made too difficult,” he says. “Also, development-driven courses require additional time to get around, leading to five-hour-plus rounds.”

Mark says we need to get back to the old days when you could walk and play a course like Hyde Park in 3 1⁄2 hours.

“Augusta National [The Masters] favors long hitters and those who draw the ball,” he says. “The U.S. Open favors straight hitters and strong players who can negotiate the rough. The Open Championship requires that you be a good wind player. But The Players favors no one. You have to have an all-around good game.”

“To put it in perspective, all the previous great golfers – Snead, Hogan, Nelson – were also club professionals,” he says. “When they weren’t playing in a tournament, they were back at their respective clubs serving as club professionals, which is how the PGA Championship grew in stature. But The Players is now the venue where all the best guys, who play 100 percent for a living, compete.

And that’s in our own back yard.