A day exploring in the Everglades

Day 13: Saturday, March 5, 2016

This small creek off the Shark River in the Everglades is a wonderful anchorage.  It is isolated, on calm waters completely out of the wind.  The boat didn’t seem to move all night.

Second Wind at ease in the beautiful everglades

We fried pancakes and bacon for breakfast.  Immediately after, we cleaned up the clutter and read, passing the time until the sun drove the vicious little bugs from our door.  At about 8:00, I ventured out to prepare Damn Dink Too for an exploratory trip only to be chased back inside by the minute villains.

During my brief stay outside, I heard a loud exhale from what I assumed was a large animal.  I looked around assuming that there was an alligator looming but

A White Ibis - I couldn't get a picture of a swamp angle

saw nothing.  As I was climbing into the cabin, I again heard the sound.  This time I continued to watch in the direction from which the sound originated and soon a lone dolphin surfaced, exhaled, inhaled and disappeared in a flash.

These little guys (the bugs, not the dolphins) nail you with a significant bite but they leave no lasting itch as we were later to encounter with the mosquitoes.  We read one account of a native who dubbed their mosquitoes, “swamp angels.”  If these are angels, I am about to have second thoughts about what lies ahead!

Traveling through the Everglades in Damn Dink Too

Finally, covered with “Deep Woods Off,” we again braved the onslaught and mounted our little 2hp Honda on the dinghy and took off south through the maze on streams and islands.  We traveled probably a mile when I decided that it would be really easy to get terribly lost, so turned around and headed back toward the boat and on to the passages that have navigation markers.

Much to my surprise, we encountered a strong tidal current that caused the little motor to really struggle to make head way.  We finally returned to our boat and headed out to the Shark River where the current seemed to be

Threading our way back through a tiny creek.

significantly less.  We tooled idly along for about a mile when we passed a channel marker and realized that we were again riding a fast moving tidal current.  We turned the Dink around and struggled to get back to the river where we had moored.  We decided that we would wait until slack tide before we again ventured out.

We went back to our novels until the lunch hour.  We both had our typical noon meal.  Janine had her Uncrustables (PBJs) and I, my soft taco. 

I am fascinated by mangrove

After naps and more reading, I determined that the tide water had stopped moving so we again ventured out.  This time we did a bunch of exploring.  We ventured into little narrow overgrown streams to take pictures and see what there was to see.  As we drug through some of the adventurous roots that hang down from the mangrove trees, we saw tiny black crabs scurry up the roots.  We had several fall into the boat.  They were about the size of a silver dollar. (Remember those things?)  The root structures of the mangrove are really interesting.  I tried to get some pictures.

As we traveled on, we saw a number of white ibises, great blue herons, ospreys, and some different types of egrets.  We also saw what we thought was a pileated woodpecker.

We got back to the boat as the ebb tide was beginning to again create a challenge for our little Honda.  Again, I must say, this is a really neat place.  I am thankful that our government has seen fit to protect this wonderland in the form of a National Park.

Tiny Black Crab

Again this evening we dined in an elegant fashion.  Our hors d'oeuvres were again sharp cheddar cheese, peach salsa and mustard dip on crackers.  We lubricated our digestive system with the remainder of the bottle of Gnarly Head Merlot.   All of this was done to a background of music played on our Sirius radio.  Our main entree included bratwurst and mashed garlic potatoes which were followed with a piece of Bake Packer spice blob cake with cream cheese icing.  OH My!

Fine dining on a 26 foot sailboat

I worked on tomorrow’s routes and read until bed time at around 9:00.