A prize winning photojournalist, Sandy Huff has
published 1,229 articles in some 111 magazines and
newspapers around the world, including Saturday
Evening Post and Highlights for Children.
She’s written several books, including Paddler’s
Guide to the Sunshine State, a top-selling guide on
Florida rivers and waterways. Her small book explaining
the Mayan Calendar system is still on sale in souvenir
shops in Yucatan. A gardening book on native Florida
water plants is in production.
Sandy
and her cameras have trekked around six of the seven
continents, including the Arctic and Antarctica. She’s
even been alligator hunting, bagging 5 bull gators that
totaled 47 feet, 11 inches. (Here’s the biggest, a
12-footer.)
Her
play, CHOMP! was produced twice – it’s a comedy,
about a poetry retreat at an alligator farm. A firm
conservationist, she guides Audubon officials every
spring to survey a rare wading bird colony near her home
in Safety Harbor, Florida.
Sandy grew up in Miami, the gateway to the Everglades, where she
spent many a day exploring the beaches, canals, and
sawgrass swamps. She discovered the mid-state lakes
and streams by attending church camps. In high school,
she joined a scuba diving club, and spent fascinated
hours face to face with moray eels, sting rays, and
manatees. When her University of Miami marine biology
professor arranged for his students to ride along on
research vessels and all-night shrimp boats, Sandy
stocked an outstanding salt water aquarium. When she
transferred to the University of Florida for her B.S.
degree, then UNC-Chapel Hill for her M.A., she managed
to find time to tube, paddle, snorkel, sail, and power
boat every body of water she could find.
When
her three kids came along, Sandy organized a traveling
Girl Scout troop. Somehow most troop excursions
involved getting wet. With other adults she paddled
across the Okeefenokee Swamp, got lost in the salt-marsh
rivers around Cape Kennedy, and was swept down the
Suwannee. She’s paddled 58 of Florida’s major
waterways.
As a
Red Cross Canoe instructor, Sandy taught hundreds of
people the basics of paddling. She learned kayak
basics at Nantahala Outdoor Center in North Carolina.
She’s currently certified as a Sailing Instructor for
U.S. Sailing, and is past Captain of Windlasses, a
woman’s sailing club. She loves to garden, and is a
Master Gardener, Master Naturalist, and would qualify as
a Master Knitter if she ever learns to knit socks.
Sandy
likes to paint, with her favorite subject being her
family. Her most fun: Playing with her grandkids.
