Florida City (Everglades National Park), Florida
Feb. 11, 2009
Picture a murky brown canal, overhung with mangroves and unimaginably peaceful. We had been enjoying the serenity and marvelling at the beauty of the everglades all afternoon as we paddled along a salt water estuary in a couple of canoes. Lochlan and I were partners, and after a couple of hours of inadvertently crashing into the overhanging mangroves and
worrying that we might be scaring out a salt-water croc, we were finally getting the hang of maneuvering our canoe. We had
been warned that it is crocodile mating season at the moment, so when the males hear something approaching they tend to launch themselves into the water and make it clear just who is the big boy on the block! There had been five huge crocs sunning themselves on the bank near the dock where we launched, and as the dock loomed into sight in the distance, we had just decided to get a little further away from the bank. "Do you want to try to see them any closer?" I asked Lochlan. He had just shaken his head "no" and turned forward again when I realised that the water on our left had changed colour -- and a large, yellowish-grey back had filled the water the entire length of the canoe.
I swear my heart actually stopped for a second -- and when it started again the roar of blood in my ears momentarily drowned out all other noises. I saw Lochlan's ashen face turn towards me but then suddenly his mouth was moving. When my hearing cleared, I realised what he was saying:
"Mom, it's a manatee! A manatee!"
It's a marvel that I actually survived the surge of so many huge emotions in the space of ten seconds. With tears springing to my eyes and sweat drenching my whole body, I looked down on that huge, graceful creature and fervently thanked God for sparing us a close visit with a crocodile, and sending us this amazing gift instead.
When we recovered ourselves and got our canoe out from over-top the huge creature, we looked down and realised there was not just one in the water, but a second much littler one as well.
"Mom, it's a calf! A mother and her calf!"
Lochlan was so excited -- we both were! We changed direction and paddled alongside them, back upstream towards Mitch and the little two, who had been some distance behind us. We had arranged that we would indicate by waves if we saw wildlife, so we didn't disturb whatever we were seeing, but I couldn't stop echoing Lochlan's excited cries of, "It's a manatee" as I waved my paddle frantically in the air.
And then there we all were, watching with enchantment as the mother and her calf flowed calmly through the water alongside the bank, close enough we could have reached in and touched them. Every now and then we'd hear a funny spouting noise as they surfaced for another breath, and every now and then a funny little grey snout would delicately reach up out of the water and graze on a particularly tempting bunch of mangrove leaves. She probed the leaves carefully before eating them; it reminded me of how an elephant will feel gently with the end of her trunk. Throughout the time, they seemed so peaceful and calm, unpreterbed by the excited whispers of us strange two-legged creatures floating alongside them.
As we finally, regretfully, slowed our pace upstream and let them continue on without us, we could see their beautiful, fan-shaped tails clearly, and could see in an instant how the sailor's myth of the mermaid was born.
Manatees are on the endangered species list now -- there are probably less than 2000 left in US coastal waters -- so seeing them is a rare treat. To actually be able to spend that kind of time with them was exceptional; we were the envy of the park workers on the shore as we happily burbled out our story to them. This day has been one of the highlights of this amazing
year.
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Ft. Lauderdale Airport
Feb. 12, 2009
Once we got out heads around being unexpectedly in Florida, we have had an excellent time! I remain amazed that people can come here for a holiday and spend it all in the the craziness of the mega-parks at Orlando, when the glory and uniqueness that is the Everglades is so accessible.
The Everglades is a vast track of swampy marshland that sprawls across the bottom of the long and narrow peninsula that is the state of Florida. There are better scientific ways to describe it, I am sure, but essentially the Kissimee River, and the huge lake that it flows into, don't drain into the ocean in a conventional way. Once the waters leave the lake, they fan out and spread across hundreds of thousands of acres, in one of Natures most unique water purification and wetland creating processes. The shallow spread of water is covered with saw-grass, for miles upon miles... so in a bizarre way, in many places the Everglades looked to us like what we imagine the African savannah to be like. In other places, waterways are lined with mangroves, or dotted with stands of cypress and huge old trees that they call 'hammocks'.
We started our Everglades journey by travelling from South Orlando down to the Ft. Lauderdale area. (What we didn't realise then is that we actually following the Kissimee River, which is the major water source for the Everglades.) We went to the Gumbo Limbo Nature Centre, where we saw our first alligator, a little guy sunning himself on the bank of a pond, and pools displaying all sorts of aquatic animals and fish, including many turtles, which are high on our favourite animal list. It was a great centre, but we were really keen to see more wildlife in it's natural habitat, so we moved on out of the urban zone (which is simply solid all along that Eastern coast of Florida), and into the Loxahatchee Nature Reserve. There we were hoping for the excitement of an airboat ride, or something similar, but discovered it's really just a vast expanse of protected wetland... not thrilling, perhaps, but great for hiking and walking.
We saw a number of big beautiful birds, and enjoyed just ambling along together. As we headed back to the car after putting in several miles on foot, I was idly watching Lochlan who had run on ahead, when he suddenly trotted to the side of the path, then leaped aside and back with enormous height and speed -- he'd just about stepped on a BIG alligator.
All the warnings I've ever had drummed into me about not approaching large predators came flooding back as Mitch -- with the boys following close behind -- crept closer and closer to the creature, who was really frightening looking. Fortunately, he was not interested in us, he didn't even stir, and Mitch got this great picture... but my heart was in my mouth as I wondered what on earth I'd do if the alligator suddenly lunged and started to drag him into the water!? Hit him with my purse?
Of course Mitch made light of my fears, but a couple of days later, in Everglades National Park, a warden told us the story of a family from Brazil last year who rented bikes and were riding along the trail with water on either side, much as this path was. Their ten-year-old-boy, for whatever reason, raced ahead of his parents, then swerved, lost control, and went over the edge of the bank and headlong into the water... right on top of an alligator. The alligator saw the thrashing child as prey, seized him around his chest in her powerful jaws, and started to pull him under. The boys mother, meanwhile, had arrived on the scene, sized it up in a glance, and leapt on the back of the 'gator, screaming and beating it around the head with a flash-light she must have been carrying. The poor alligator, who was only acting on instinct, finally released him and slunk off. By this time some other tourists had arrived on the scene, and they managed to get the boy out and eventually to hospital, where he had broken ribs and punctured lungs, but miraculously sustained no lasting damage. The moral of the story -- carry something heavy when wandering in alligator country, and don't get too close! Apparently tourists will arrive at the park, see an alligator, and crawl onto it's back to have their picture taken! Makes me embarrassed to be human, sometimes...
We went even farther south, level with Miami but further inland, to get to Everglades National Park. There things got exciting! We learned that airboats are really not a great environmental choice (they're not even available within the park borders), so we opted for canoes instead, and had our adventure with the manatees. That day as well as the manatees we saw the salt-water crocs, and lots of alligators -- but with every sighting we still squealed with delight. But an unexpected and amazing bonus was the bird-life; there were thousands and thousand of beautiful water-birds. What is astounding is that the terrible and on-going problem of water diversion, which will mean the death of the Everglades if serious and radical action isn't taken soon, has lead to an astonishing plummet in the number of birds in the area; the birds that we saw were only a fraction of those who once made the area their home. It must have been breath-taking to see them when the area was first discovered, as they're stunning in number and beauty even now. Herons, spoonbills, Ibis, and the strange and loevly anahinga (picture below); what was most fun for us was how quickly the children came to identify them, and their proud nonchalance in being able to do so. When we identified a rare and endangered wood stork, it was almost as exciting as that first alligator.
Today we went up to the Shark Valley area of the park, where a two-hour tour on a "tram" took us much deeper than we could even get on foot. (And it was too hot and open to have hiked far, anyhow!) This was a triumphant day -- the boys counted sighting more than 160 alligators before they lost count. They had faithfully worked on the "Junior Ranger" booklets they received when they first entered the Park, and now are not only fonts of knowledge about the Everglades, but are proud recipients of their "Junior Park Ranger" badges!
So closes another chapter of adventures. We are waiting at the airport now for our late-night flight to Managua, and a whole new culture and way-of-life to explore.
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