The Everglades: Part I

After leaving the Alligator Farm we headed into the actual Everglades National Park. We made sure to stop and pose with this panther statue outside of the Visitor Center. Jess and I never hesitate to climb all over a National Park statue.

  

Due to its abundance of wildlife, the star attraction that the Ranger pointed us to was the Anhinga Trail. As we drove down to the parking lot we noticed that half the cars in the parking lot were covered with tarps. Obviously we were missing something. We finally saw a sign near the bathrooms that warned vultures may eat the rubber off of your car so it was advised to protect it with the provided tarps. As we weren’t planning on staying long, we decided to risk it. Luckily this did not end up happening. Can you imagine coming back to your car and seeing this!?

 

The Anhinga trail winds through a sawgrass marsh, where we saw all kinds of good stuff!

I love the color of this guy's beak

Drying his wings

One of the many birds we saw

We caught this guy eating his lunch

The eye color of this guy was so pretty!

This bird let us get realllly close

Vultures and gators

There were tons of gators swimming around

The Anhinga Trail is definitely a must see in the Everglades. We only spent about 45 minutes walking around but the amount of flora and fauna we got to see was amazing. 

Everglades Alligator Farm

Day Seven (Friday, March 16^th):

Last night we ended up staying at a hotel in Key Largo because we were too exhausted to make the drive to the Everglades. We made full use of the shower to scrub off the deserted island feel and arrived in the Everglades the next day as new women. Looking good, our first stop was the Everglades Alligator Farm. When Jess mentioned seeing gators and taking an airboat ride in the Everglades I was expecting some redneck shack with a few gators and a wild eyed guide but the Farm was actually really nice. We got to see all kinds of stuff:

Baby Gators

Crocodiles

Turtles. Lindsay even fed these little guys!

Tortoise

The elusive Florida panther. I caught him with his eyes open!

A blue eyed goose with crazy feathers

But of course the star attractions were these guys!!

Gators, gators everywhere. I obviously have not spent a lot of time around alligators but I think they are very interesting creatures. Most of the time they just lay around like logs (ah the perks of being cold blooded) but Lindsay started feeding some of them and they started moving around and they just look like dinosaurs.

Here's 'Grampa' at `14 feet long

My favorite part was the airboat ride. Not wanting to lose the cover of my awesome hat, I wisely slipped the required ear protection right over top.

 We hopped in alongside Pschyo Paul (our driver) and trolled down a small creek where there were plenty of alligators to be seen.

Psycho Paul

 

Then we hit the wide open grass and went cruising. The airboats are pretty loud but we all had ear protection and the ride was so smooth that I could have ridden around all day. Psycho Paul even spun us around and sprayed us with water in some spots which was really fun.

It was so cool to see the “river of grass” as the Everglades is known.

 Arriving back at the Farm, it was time for the Alligator Show where a crazy man angers a gator...

...and then holds the gators mouth open with his chin while tourists wait with cameras poised to capture the moment when the gator wins.

Alas the crazy man conquered while the gator just wandered off affronted. The audience participation portion is when a baby gator with tape around his mouth gets passed around to the excited tourists. The funniest thing was that the crazy man just hands out 2 gators and walks away to collect tips.  I definitely could have walked out of there with a baby gator if I wanted to.
 
With gators on the brain, Jess and I had some fried gator for lunch. It was so delicious. We wondered just how “fresh” the meat was as hundreds of gators lay within throwing distance of the food truck.
After a short walk through the nature trail it was feeding time for the gators. Once again crazy man graced us with his presence and proceeded to throw dead rats to a bunch of gators. I thought it would be more of a frenzy but I guess they are used to getting food thrown at them several times a day. It’s funny to watch them miss through because they have blind spots and they can’t see the rat when its right in front of them. 

Dry Tortugas: Part IV

We ducked out of the fort your early in order to be first in line to get our lunch on the boat. After eating and with our island time running out, we decided to do one last snorkel trip. We dove in to explore around the pilings that Lindsay had checked out yesterday. The first thing I saw was a massive barracuda that scared the heck out of me. I didn't manage to get a picture but I gave him a wide berth.

I also swam around (not above) this hole as who knew what could lurk in there?

I really liked this spot to snorkel because it was really close to the beach but there were no people there. Probably because they didn't want to weave around a bunch of rotted wood sticking out of the ocean. I managed to scrape my leg on one of the beams but otherwise emerged unscathed.

There was much more coral growing on these sunken beams as well.

We got out with enough time to dry out before heading back on the boat. I was so in love with the Fort that I couldn't leave without taking some more pictures. I even discovered the old bakery! While wandering around I checked out the time on my camera and thought I had plenty of time so I continued on.

Eventually as I was about to head up to the third floor I noticed that there weren't a lot of people around. I looked at my camera again and saw the time hadn't changed since the last time I looked at it and I realized that I was looking at it wrong and it was actually 2:42 and the ferry was scheduled to depart at 2:45! I flew through the Fort and ran on the boat as the second to last person to board! That was a close one!

The ferry ride back was wild. I went to sit at my spot in the side near the back but the waves were so rough that I ended up getting soaking wet with all the spray so I moved to the very back where at least the sun could shine on me. I grabbed a spot sitting on top of the water cooler and was soon joined by about 20 seasick people who were moaning and groaning. Luckily I didn't see anyone puke but we were all hanging on as the boat rocked and rolled. I had never been on seas that rough before and it was a heck of a wild ride but we made it back safe.

Dry Tortugas: Part III

Day Six (Thursday, March 15^th):

The boats who spent the night moored at sea

 I was really looking forward to the desert island feel of camping overnight on the island but alas the generator for the park rangers ran all night long. That sound wasn't too bad but the winds were a bigger concern. They picked back up in the middle of the night and I ended up having to take off the rain fly at 3:00am as well as re-drive the stakes into the ground and put bricks on top of them to anchor the Chateau.

The morning dawned somewhat cloudy which actually allowed me to get some good sunrise pictures.

We packed up our gear and had it down by the docks so it could be loaded back onto the ferry when it arrived. I waited by the beach to spy the ferry coming in.  It was a welcome sight (food! cold water! indoor plumbing!)

We decided to take the fort tour to learn more about what we had explored yesterday. Ranger Chris was a great guide and I learned so much about the island and the fort.

For instance, the name is so called because: Dry, because none of the islands has fresh water and Tortugas, because Ponce de León, a Spanish explorer, saw an abundance of sea turtles on the island. This lack of water presented a huge problem when the fort existed. An extensive rainwater collection system was built, but the islands only get scant rainfall.

Fort Jefferson is a massive but unfinished coastal fortress. It is the largest masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere and is composed of over 16 million bricks. The fort was never completed because of fears that additional bricks and cannon would cause further settling and place more stress on the structure and the cistern system. Distinguishing features include decorative brickwork and 2,000 arches. The fort was constructed to protect shipping in the Gulf as the island afforded a safe anchorage at all seasons, and was there was a sufficient depth of water for ships. During its peak there were more than 2,000 people at the Fort but never a hostile shot was fired. During the Civil War the Fort was used as a prison for Union deserters and its most famous prisoner is Dr. Samuel Mudd who was convicted of conspiracy in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln because he set his leg after Booth injured it jumping from the balcony.

The conditions were deplorable with scurvy (SCURVY!!) running rampant and morale always at a low. However, Ranger Chris pointed out that, compared to actually fighting in a war with bullets, maybe it wasn't all that bad.

 I have been to many a fort and this is definitely one of my favorites. Dry Tortugas is one of the least visited National Parks but it played such an integral role in the history of our country that it is one of the most important ones.