Early in the day before the boat traffic gets bad, the reflections are fantastic in the dark brown waters of the mangrove swaps. We launched the boat and floated down Buttonwood Canal into Coot Bay, through Tarpon Creek into Whitewater Bay. It was a relaxing daytrip into the Glades. We saw dolphin and some of the regular waders plus a white crested pigeon and an oriole that we added to our list. Thankfully there were a few clouds and some wind so we only got a little too much sun.

One more reason to not swim here. We saw a shark! They claim there are many here in the bay…the water is generally pretty murky so you can’t see them. That is certainly a little creepy!

The Everglades Matriarch crocodile, so old she has no teeth, she used up a whole lifetimes worth. She laid eggs along the shore near the marina today.

A 64 year old woman who volunteers here at the park just returned from a 215 mile solo kayak trip through the glades. She has logged 175 nights alone in the backcountry of the Everglades over the past 10 years or so. She talked about it tonight with wonderful memories of sunsets, sunrises and black starlit nights. She also talked about horrible bugs, shoe stealing-thick mudflats, storms, sharks, equipment failures and navigation challenges in the maze-like mangrove swamps.
It seems generally more scary than the canoe trip in Boundary Waters in Minnesota for some reason. I don’t think I would go for weeks at a time but it might be cool to try for a couple nights.

From nearly invisible no-see-ums to the orb weaver spider, this place does indeed have bugs. The no-see-ums are just plain annoying. They can get through nearly any mesh screen and the way you know that they are there is the bite. It’s much more painful than a mosquito bite. Unbelievable for such a little guy. There are lots of spiders in the mangrove swamps. The Orb weaver spider is big (easily over 2” in diameter). The crab spider is only the size of a dime and looks very much like its name sake. Between the two of them, they create a bit of a gauntlet for hikers in the mangroves.

The Ranger encouraged us to park along the road in the bright sun so the vultures wouldn’t dismantle the car while we were out on our canoe trail. Seems it worked, we still have windshield wipers and window glass weather stripping. The Ranger claimed they actually took the sunroof out of her car…ripped out the rubber sealing strip.

Actually it’s swamp and marsh and woodlands and coastal plain and mangrove islands and mudflats. This is a pretty amazing place from a geology/hydrology/ecology standpoint. They have a number of well done Ranger programs that do a nice job of educating on it. The more I learn the more I appreciate how unique and irreplaceable it is.

Crocodile. He looks pretty much like an alligator to me. There are real, subtle differences; but with that many teeth I have trouble concentrating on the subtle differences.
43 kinds of mosquitoes including the salt marsh mosquito that has the nastiest bite of them all. Thank goodness for a pretty constant mid-day wind that has kept them at a tolerable level. This place is off the list during wet season for sure!
Alligators, there a lot of them here too.
Wading and shore birds; quite the assortment. Warblers and songbirds, just a few.
Dozens of wood storks moving between a field and an island rookery. They are canopying and hopping about and circling as they vie for the best roost and try to impress the ladies. With a 5 ft wingspan and bold black and white coloring it is quite the act to watch.
Roseate spoonbills like odd looking ballerinas cavorting around in their pink feather tutus.
Manatees cavorting in the marina. Mostly we just saw noses as they lolled around in the shallow water. They hung around for over an hour.
Dolphins cruise in on the bow of a fishing boat. Florida bay is shallow and muddy and they say filled with dolphins. We didn’t venture out there but a couple of dolphins showed up to give us a little show. They rode the bow waves in then goofed around a little while before they decided that the marina bay wasn’t just right for them.
Overall, this Park is not as teaming with obvious wildlife as you might think. We have to look for it. It is worth it.

The campground is on a wide coastal plain and the area amazingly undeveloped. The lodge and restaurant that had been here were destroyed and so far not rebuilt. Somewhere in the hierarchy of the park System, it struck them that a place that gets 9ft + storm surges might not be a great place for one of those grandiose Park Lodges.

Flamingo in Everglades National Park. Every Park seems to look for some superlative. For their purposes, the keys don’t count….they are islands after all.

In seats in the front row and ear protection in place, we were ready. At first the boat slid slowly and smoothly along the water through the winding mangrove tunnels. It was peaceful and beautiful. Then we took off with a roar and sped through the twists and turns like a slalom skier. In the open water beyond, we picked up a little more speed and slid through the turns. That was our ride on Captain Doug’s airboat with Jeremy at the helm.
It was great – the sensation of speed and the gliding through the tunnels.
It was a bit of a bummer – they didn’t exactly treat the wildlife according to National Park ethics (slid the boats right over a gator and fed the raccoons potato chips so they would pose for the visitors) and the one captain actually emptied the gas out of his fuel filter right into the water in the middle of the swamp when he had engine trouble. He did it in front of all the passengers. Obviously he didn’t see any problem with that. Hmmm.

It was a first hand reminder just how difficult it is to balance the commercial aspects with preserving these fragile environments.