Everglades

Little Shark River, Everglades
25 20.25 N 081 06.60 W

I'm hooked. Our plan was to leave here tomorrow and continue north to the Ten Thousand Islands area. However, I'm so enchanted with this place that I asked Libby if we could stay here for 2-3 more days. She said, "Sure."

Yesterday, Libby and I set out with the dinghy and the outboard to explore. We found what appears to be an infinite expanse of waterways, and mangrove swamps. (Check out these coordinates on Google Earth or wikimapia.org 25.33757 -81.11008) The rivers, creeks and streams divide and branch of in all directions. It is a little twisty maze of passages all alike. Further, the shorelines all look identical -- nothing but Mangroves visible. In fact, it would be easy to get lost here. One takes
so many turns, and everything looks so much alike, that it is easy to imagine getting lost. We didn't take a chance though, we carried our pocket Garmin GPS to find our way back. That allowed us to return by different routes than on the way out.

The extent is not infinite. After 90 minutes we found a small patch of grass. Checking the GPS map, it showed that it was mainland, rather than an island.

This morning I set out to explore once again. This time alone. Libby stayed behind on the boat making bread pudding for our dessert tonight. I decided that since everyplace here looks alike, there was no reason to travel far. I explored a small creek nearby. Then I discovered the real secret to travel in the Everglades. One should use neither outboard motor, nor oars, nor paddles for propulsion. Just sit back and let the current carry you. When I did that, a deeper layer of the environment
was revealed; I could hear the sounds. I could also drift closer to the birds before they flew away.

I drifted like that for about an hour, enchanted by the beauty and peace. Suddenly I was startled by a loud noise. I whipped my head around to see a dolphin broaching only 30 feet away. The noise I heard was of him taking a breath. I continued listening to the dolphin for another 30 minutes. Sometimes I could see him and sometimes not, but I continued to hear his breaths about once every 20 seconds up to 500 meters away.

I tried and tried to photograph the wonderful big birds flying nearby, but I don't think I succeeded. It would take more skill and better equipment than I have.

Then I found a smaller creek, only 10 feet wide. I followed it about 1/4 mile into the mangrove swamp. That was still another charming and totally different environment. I loved it.

We are not totally alone out here. We saw two motorboats with fishermen. Yesterday while exploring we encountered a party of 8 people with 4 canoes. They had paddled about 100 miles from Florida City to get here. Today, I saw a lone kayak in the distance. I think that a canoe trip down here would be a life altering experience. I hope that each of our grandchildren might get to experience something like that. There is an Outward Bound camp up in Everglades City.