We began at the Visitor Center, checked the weather and then rushed over to the marina to get onto the next boat ride. It is a slow moving flat bottomed passenger boat that motors down a man-made canal from Florida Bay to Coot Lake and on to Whitewater Bay at the southeastern corner of Florida. History, botany, biology, flora and fauna with alligators and crocodiles almost guaranteed. What’s not to like?
So, why is there a man-made canal in the Everglades? This park is big and, since so much of it is under water, it is hard for the Rangers to get from one section of the part to another. In one case it took 4 hours to get about 1 mile as the crow flies. The National Park service decided to dredge a canal between these two to make it much easier to get between them. Nice canal and we boated through it today. However, it was an ecological disaster: it allowed the tide and the saline water of the ocean into the innermost parts of the park, where fresh water is needed. Oops. They realized their problems and decided it had to be fixed ASAP. 30 years later, a decision is made, money is appropriated and a cement ’plug’ is put into place. Simple solution - 30 years to implement.
Nice small group - we saw the group after ours, and I don’t think there were enough benches for all of them to sit down at once.
And, if they saw a crocodile on the port side and all moved that way to see it - they might end up swimming with that croc. Our group was small and we could all see, freely move about the boat and have the time to ask any question we wanted. Our first sight was two small crocodiles sunning on a branch, one on top of the other.
I then spotted this crocodile on the side of the bank. Oops, that’s not a crocodile, that’s an imaginative arrangement of mud and holes. Sorry, everyone.
We saw lots of kayakers also moving on down the canal. This is a kayak or canoe trail through the park to Everglades City on the Gulf Coast - it takes 9 days usually and there are 8 small tenting areas along it. Maybe anther trip. Right.
Our guide pointed out a poisonous tree to us: bright shiny green droopy leaves - that kind of describes lots of trees to me and I’m not sure that I’d recognize it if I saw it again. The results of coming into contact with it are horrendous, its sap can dissolve your skin, getting it in your throat is like drinking clorox the native tribes used it on their arrows. Highly poisonous is what our guide told us. The NP service goes through the trails to remove it but it is growing in the canal we took today. Now, we were a controlled group since we couldn’t reach this tree but there were lots of canoes out with people in them. I”m sure they get a thorough lesson is what to look for, bright shiny droopy leaves.
At one point, the ranger told us that seeds of the West Indian Mahogany tree had blown in on the wind and it had established itself in the park. Then he said it was a native tree. Huh? How could something that had blown in form some other place be native? Good question he said (everyone always says it is a good question). A non-native tree is brought in by man while a native tree either grows here naturally or is brought by nature. Ah, now I get it. If nature brings it here - it is native. If man brings it here - it is invasive.
We saw the fin of a dolphin - actually, we saw the whole dolphin as it leaped out of the water but I got only a picture of the fin.
One bank of the canal is lined with a mangrove swamp. It’s hard to get a picture showing how deep it is but, trust me, these mangrove trees are deep and intertwined.
Who is this Gabby Hays look-alike?
We’ve seen several osprey nests today. All seem to have small families in them. Well, of course, it’s a nest. Ha. I”m so smart. The park is a veritable maternity ward this week with lots of little cheeps.
After our boat tour we stopped into the small restaurant for a piece of key lime pie. There used to be a luxurious resort here along with a fancy restaurant, gift shop and all the accoutrement's but Hurricane Andrew wiped it all out and now the restaurant is a cooking trailer alongside a screened in cafe. Very nice and breezy, especially in the summer but hardly luxurious. The food is still good and the key lime pie was scrumptious. Nice way to end our day.
This little piece of America is the only place in America where both the crocodile and the alligator reside: it is the northern boundary of crocodile territory and the southern border of alligator territory. Sweet. Remind me to wear armor when I
We did a boat tour, we hiked some trails, we tasted the key lime pie,
we took pictures of the crocs, we watched the manatees in the marina
and we headed back to the RV.
When we returned from our hike, we went to the bathroom in the campground and noticed a ‘boil’ recommendation on the doors. Oh, shucks. Well, that really doesn’t affect us since we have our own water here in the RV. We began our stay here with a full tank and have used less than 1/3 in the 2 days we have been here. We’ll be all right. However, there are lots of tenters here and I can only imagine how difficult boiling all water will be. Even washing your hands in the bathroom is suspect. I did notice that they had a display of sanitary hand wash on the counter by the cash register in the VC when we were there. Maybe this is why.
Both of us are bushed - but then we’ve been going right straight out for the last 3 days. Maybe tomorrow we’ll rest.
I made some muffins tonight - no big deal - I do this all the time. However, tonight I used the only kind of eggs I’ve got in my refrigerator now: Southwestern Style Egg Beaters. Gave those muffins a little kick.
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