I’ll make this a short post after my Palm Beach rant. Rather than my usual style of story telling in the order of the photos I’ll let the photos tell the story this time.
The other day we had a free day so we decided to go check out the Everglades. (You didn’t believe I’d not tell a story did you?) As I mentioned in an earlier post (www.volitans.net.au/2018/06/key-west-wow/) Florida is a swamp so to find that the everglades was not only minutes away but the canals that covered the city (and the gators & crocs within) were part of them was a bit of a surprise.
Anyway when we got there the skies as usual for this time of year were dark and threatening. Fortunately the airboats have a roof and windscreen to make the trip a dry one. Once we had our trip tickets and were lined up ready to go I noticed an alligator just next to the jetty. My initial thought was that it was a prop to scare the tourists but a minute or two later the staff also noticed it and went into ‘croc watch mode’. It was real and too close to be ignored.
Before long we were on the water and into the everglades on a large airboat. Gee, do these things move fast or what? We were flying over the top of the reeds and lillies and spent the next hour gator spotting. We hoped we might see a ‘gator. We saw heaps of them. They are thick and plentiful. The most interesting part for me was that they say they don’t feed the wildlife (it’s illegal) but whenever we cruised by a gator they closed in on the boat and even at times followed us. So if these wild animals are not fed then they are extremely inquisitive reptiles.
Once back at the base we waited for the “Alligator Wrestling” show which is actually an entertaining education talk. The presenter is the only licensed “live catch” trapper in Florida. He was also the man who had the unfortunate job of attending the death by alligator of a woman just down the road from us at Davie. She was walking 3 dogs when one ventured too close for a gator to ignore. Apparently she jumped in to save the dog but lost her arm and her life. No word about the dog.
That’s about it for this post. I said I’d keep it short.
Watch for the next exciting episode, same bat time, same bat channel!
Cheers
Garry & Shane
Watching your progess across the states
The fun is just beginning. How are you guys? Good to hear from you. We never did exchange addresses. Have you now on my ‘safe senders list.