Alligator Action

From time to time there have been questions about the wildlife photos I take, and where they were taken. We have been blessed to travel a bit, and to take photos along the way. State parks are a great place to take photos. The photos on this page were taken with a cheap, disposable camera. Which is a good thing, as you will see...

A Long-ish Story of Vacation Bliss (Illustrated)
or
Swimming with the Gators

Our vacation was progressing along well. The Florida weather had cooperated better than it had in previous trips to the Sunshine State. No rain, no cool days.

My wife and I had accomplished several of our goals, including watching some baseball games, enjoying the outdoors, and generally avoiding the crowds of Spring Breakers. Cami had dropped a couple of hints about wanting to rent a canoe and paddle along the placid rivers we walked along in the two main state parks we visited. I thought that was an ok idea, but wasn't just bursting at the seams to hop into a boat and paddle around. There were photos to be taken after all. Perhaps, I said, we can do that later in the week.

Being a man, I assumed those hints were nothing more than "suggestions" and failed to remember the first rule of marriage: if she's hinting about it, it means she actually really wants it. This "failure to read the mind of the female companion" led, as it inevitably does, to a brief but volatile conflict where what was "said" and what was "meant" by both sides was hotly debated. By the end of the conversation, it was clear that she very much wanted to rent a canoe and it was equally clear that I would not enjoy much more of the vacation if I were to back out on my commitment to rent a canoe "tomorrow".

Which leads us back to the park east of Sarasota where many of the photos of wildlife were taken. We had spent one day there photographing the alligators, heron, egrets and other wildlife. It was a beautiful park, with several places to observe the birds, including a great walkway area. We went back to partake of the boat rental in what we believed would be a lazy row down the river.

Now, it was not with total ignorance that we started this trip, which is something that needs to be clear up front. We knew that the park was home to alligators. A lot of alligators. I had photographed them and we watched them for literally hours. The place where we rented the boat was right across from one of the flop-pads (areas of smoothed-down grass and mud where the 'gators sun themselves, but maintain quick access to the water) of a pretty good sized male.

But what should have (in retrospect) given us more concern was the conversation we had with the friendly lady running the canoe rental. She said that a lot of people had been complaining that the wind was making it hard to "get back". Being a canoe novice, this didn't mean much to us other than we would allow more time to paddle back. We figured for a two hour trip, we'd paddle down river for 45 minutes, and allow an hour and fifteen minutes to get back. We had a plan.

But the trip turned rocky almost immediately. First, we found it was difficult to control the direction of the canoe, especially in the wind. If the wind is not either at your back, or head-on, it causes the boat to be very difficult to control. Paddling across part of the lake to get the the mouth of the river proved harder than we thought it would be, but soon we were heading down river.  We took a rather leisurely pace. I took photos of the smoke from a controlled burn (notice the 'gator laying in the sun)  and there were lots of birds that would have been great to photograph with my telephoto lens, if I had been daring enough to take my "real" camera out on the water.

We came to several places where the river split off into various fingers.  The wind was still whipping us, mostly from behind, but also at an angle that made it hard to steer. We spent a good amount of time banging from one bank of the river to the other, often over-compensating for our poor steering by steering hard the opposite direction.

Alligators were abundant along the banks of the river, and occasionally floating/swimming out by the boat. I thought I took more photos of the 'gators, but the reality was that if there were 'gators, we were paddling to avoid them. At one point we passed through an area where several of the fingers of the river re-converged, and there were, in effect, four or five banks where at least eight or nine 'gators were basking in the sun, watching us pass by. I wasn't nervous when we were in the vicinity of one or two alligators, knowing their aversion to day-time feeding and knowing they don't like taking on "big animals" (hey, my weight was finally an "advantage") by themselves, but I must admit the idea of eight or nine of these powerful, brutal animals eying me raised the anxiety quite a bit. One thing the boat guide had said stuck in my mind: "They don't like to be bothered to eat during the day, but they won't pass up a free meal either."

Cami was getting nervous now too, because in addition to the 'gators, we weren't getting a lot better at steering the canoe. We decided to circle back, but first paddled into a little open water area where I took what turned out to be the last pictures of the canoe trip itself. (I took the photo of the beautiful sky with the faithful readers of this photo-log in mind.)

Soon we were paddling furiously into the wind, ping-ponging back and forth between the river banks, desperately trying to avoid the various alligator flop-pads along the way. Surprisingly, we were relatively successful. We passed several other canoes on their way down-river as we headed back toward "home." The last "leg" of the trip would prove to be the most difficult.

The river widened to about 70 feet as we approached the point where it flows from the lake. Not only was the wind stronger here, but the current of water flowing out of the lake was also pushing against us. We found it almost impossible to paddle the last 100 yards or so. We would bounce into the bank on the right of us, push off, get caught in the wind, pushed to the left, paddle furiously to get righted, etc, etc. We were making little progress so we dug our oars in and rested.

Cami suggested we try to hug the right bank as much as possible, keeping out of the wind. As we paddled close to the point where we would be able to pull the boat out of the water and walk it (through a picnic area) back to the rental shack. We were making progress, and had gotten within 50 yards or so of the point we were shooting for when the wind picked up and began to turn the boat to the left and away from our destination. Cami was paddling furiously against the turning of the boat, and I knew why. We were headed directly toward a flop-pad of a rather large gator that lives just across from the low-level dam that separates the river from the lake. She was paddling so furiously, in fact, that I saw the potential for something much worse than bumping the bank right at the 'gator's front door. Just as I started to yell for Cami to work WITH the turn and to try to do a 360 degree wrap-around, I felt the effects of her furious paddling, the wind hitting us square from the side, and the current of the water begin to de-stabilize our boat.

And we tipped over.

Thankfully the river is no deeper than the lake (5 to 8 feet at it's deepest) and we were both able to stand up. We quickly decided to walk the now-waterlogged canoe back to the shore (50 yards or so), ignoring the thought that there could well be submerged gators in the vicinity. Once we finally made it to shore, a gentleman who had been watching us helped us empty the boat and carry it back to the rental shack. As we picked up the boat, I glanced back to the river. In the very spot we had capsized floated the alligator we had been trying to avoid. Obviously, he had come to investigate the scene of all the commotion. When I mentioned that the 'gator was in the exact spot where we had tipped, the teenage girl with the gentleman who was helping us gave me a very serious look and said, "Try not to think about it."

We ate lunch after that. Cami changed clothes as I sat around waiting for mine to dry. We ate and dozed under the canopy of the picnic area trying not to think about what we would have done had our adventure turned "wet" back at the point where eight or more alligators had us in their sights.

Remind me of this the next time Cami wants to rent a canoe....

esw - March 2004