We Made an Alligator Happy Today. July 1, 2016

We began today on the ship on the east coast of Florida and ended the day on the west coast half way up the state in Tampa.  Along the way we had adventure.

We disembarked this morning and went through customs quickly and we were waiting for our ride to our car by just after 8:00 a.m.  We found everything just great at our car and were on the road before 9:00 a.m.  Right after we got in the car, it started to rain. We drove through the rain for about 20 minutes.  It then stopped and was sunny and bright.

We drove west through the state to the Everglades. The Everglades were different than we expected. We were thinking tall trees growing in swamp with Spanish Moss hanging low. The whole thing kind of dark and creepy.   Nope, not the part we saw there were a lot of Mangrove trees and plenty of sunlight.  There were large stretches of larger trees with the Spanish Moss, but beautiful and shady but not creepy.

We had wanted to find some place to take an air boat ride. We drove past several places and then got into the national preserve area and there were no more places offering air boat rides. We were afraid we had missed it. 

After driving about 40 miles, we saw a sign for air boat rides and pulled in.





There was a boat leaving in 4 minutes and it had two spaces on it. So we took it. We went with 9 other people.  We did not expect it to be as noisy as it was.

Here we are on the air boat

We headed out through the Mangroves.  Every so often our "Captain Louis" would stop and tell us information about what we were seeing.  The water was only about 18 inches deep and it was reddish.

You can see the bottom of the water

He told us the water is called brackish which means part saltwater and part fresh water.  Both salt-water fish and fresh-water fish come there in the spring to spawn.  The fresh-water fish don't like to stay there long because they don't like the saltwater on their scales etc. If you went into the water, you would sink into the mud and moving around would pull you down.  

The mangrove trees there are fascinating.  Their roots grow above ground and go down to the mud below.  Their leaves falling down into the water is what makes it red color.  As the leaves decompose, they release tanic acid into the water, which turns it red.  They also release salt from their leaves.  It was fun to learn.

The "branches" at the bottom are really the roots

We also got to see an alligator.  It was a female who was nesting.  The pile of sticks in the base of the mangroves is the nest.  She laid her eggs about a week ago.  The air boat guys had seen here laying the eggs.  They will be hatching in about 5 more weeks.  It was difficult to get her picture since she was mostly in the water.

Look closely, you can see her near the greenery on the left side of the picture.  Her nest is above her.

We saw another gator later on in the tour.  We were out about 1 hour.

When we got back to the dock, we were invited in to hold a baby alligator.  Michael and I were the only ones who went in to take advantage of this.  The alligator was two years old and about 2 feet long.  It made me nervous, but Michael seemed to enjoy it, and so I thought why not.  The captain told us he liked to be scratched on the back of his head just like a puppy.  He reached over and rubbed the back of his head and the alligator stretched back his head and closed his eyes.  You could almost see him purr if alligators purred.  Michael and I were able to rub the back of his head and he reacted the same way.  So, we were able to make an alligator happy today. 

Michael holding the gator with the captain looking on.

Baby Alligator with Nola

After we left the air boats, we continued on our way.   We were able to call and talk to Declan for his birthday.  We loved it when we were saying goodbye and he said he loved us. We made it to Tampa about 6:00 tonight.  We spent the evening updating the blog from the cruise and organizing our baggage, which had been organized for the cruise, not for the daily moves from place to place.  Tonight is the last night in Florida after almost two weeks. Tomorrow night we will be in Georgia.