Everglades

Do not become a Local Statistic!!!

            It’s time for a Field Trip!

            Please hand in your Permission Slips to Miss Crabtree on your way to the bus. Today we’re going to visit one of the most diverse habitats on the planet, the Florida Everglades.

            Most of us are familiar enough with the geography of Florida so an in-depth explanation will not be forthcoming! Just remember Lake Okeechobee, its vastness, and the fact that its southern shoreline makes up the northernmost reaches (and the beginning of) the Everglades.

            The Everglades have been loosely described as the widest river on Earth, but that is only if we abandon the traditional description of a river. But it does show for our purposes that a sixty-mile wide “river” of slowly flowing water impacts this region.

            I’ll go out on a limb here and practically assume that all (?) of you at one time or another have visited Disney World in Orlando. Ok…. remember back to then and if you happened to visit there in the near unfathomably uncomfortable time period from June through September, at around 2pm in the afternoon Mom and Dad would announce that it was time to “go inside” for a bit. That is because at that time, every day, the Thunderstorms would arrive, dump a bazillion gallons of distilled Gulf waters on the region and then move on. These ‘events’, a.k.a. the Rainy Season, are what fuels this vast river of water that moves ever so slowly southward, eventually reaching the Florida Bay at the tip of the Florida peninsula, sometimes years later. That’s how slowly this ‘river’ flows.

                        All of this can be explained by the geology and hydrology of the State, but to understand that we will need to go and ask our old friend Mr. Plate Tectonics!

      “Oh… not him again, Donny! If you insist on that we’ll stop reading right now!”

                        I knew you’d feel that way, so just know that Florida used to be part of Africa (what!!!???) and over the years the gradual submersion and raising cycles of the land deposited a whole bunch of ‘stuff’ there which in turn became limestone which is really porous which makes for a great aquifer which enables all of those rains to eventually settle down and seep in which makes up a large part of Florida’s water -based ecosystems.

The End.

                        Not of everything, just the end of Mr. Plate Tectonics role.

                        While the apparent ‘look’ of the Everglades is certainly that of a fairly level area, within this area there are the ups and downs which create some interestingly different habitats for all of the Critters. In fact, the highest part of the Everglades has an elevation of a whopping 8 feet above sea level. While even the barrier islands of the East Coast have higher elevations than that, that number is enough to help foster a dynamic range of the aforementioned habits.

                        We toured two of these habitats yesterday, one in a really cool airboat and the other in a Swamp Buggy on steroids. By now you are all familiar with my loathing of ‘sharing’ an important experience with the multitudes of new friends that accompany one on these types of outings. So, a call to Captain Jack’s Airboat Tours assured me that I could hire a boat just for the four of us.

                        Headphones in place, and a firm grip on whatever was available, we were ready for our personal Captain (Stanford) to whisk us around the mangroves in this part of the Everglades. These types of boats just skim along the surface of the water and yes, can even fly over logs (which we did) with no apparent issues. The bottoms are 100% completely flat which makes for some fun tight turns which Captain Stanford afforded us while aboard.

It’s my guess that most folks want a “ride” on these zoomy things and that is what the Boats deliver. At the same time we were given a running commentary on the flora and fauna of the area, complete with local history as Stanford grew up right there in Everglades City (‘city’ being a relative term) and was able to speak to the rapid advancement of the vast mangrove forests that cover the entire coastal areas of south Florida.

As you can see from the photos that the way that the root systems work, they help ‘anchor’ the land and provide habitat for the newly hatched teeny-tinies of the faunas that live there. They also obviously are an incredible natural barrier that protects these areas from storm surges and the like when a ura‘caine whips into town.

                        Our visit yesterday was well before the rainy season but also in the hot season (90 degrees), but well below that Insufferable Season which routinely hits that number and above and also throws in that Humidity (it’s the rainy season!) Best times to visit are December through early March, worst times are June through September. And since we were in a kind of ‘shoulder’ season, the ‘skeeters were non-existent! Which for me, as I am a card-carrying member of the M.M.A. (Mosquito Magnets Anonymous) was quite a treat because the opposite would have been a nightmare!

                        After our Airboat Adventure we sourced out a local waterside restaurant featuring the local Delicious Denizens of the Deep and had lunch before the next event of the day, the Swamp Buggy ride. This one was not available on a private basis, but our Buggy-Mates were well behaved, so all went well. These things are custom-built right there. Ours was an old school bus chassis which had a raised seating area installed along with some special tires. We sat about eight feet above the ground which enabled us to wade through some swampy areas and at the same time be able to see above the high grasses and reeds that populate this area of the Everglades.

This is also the area where we were able to experience some of those raised sections. These are called ‘hammocks’ or in some areas ‘hummocks’ and there are several different types depending on what grows on and near them. We had a hardwood hammock to explore as the trail went directly in, through, up, and over it.

These areas are the ones that do not contain the ‘gators. ‘Cept in the rainy season when everything kinda floods. This pushes the dry-feet critters into these hammocks, but the wet-feet varieties can pursue a little bit further in. It’s a gator eat ‘coon, snake eat gator, world out there! Yes, even the Apex Predator (Mr. Gator) has some enemies beside us….. the Burmese Python, which is not supposed to be there, but then, we all know the Tales of Invasive Species!

                        The Everglades National Park is down here along with a myriad of other Federal and State parks and ecological areas. It is easy to get around, there are not that many roads, and they are fairly direct. It is one of the most unique varied habitats around and a trip down here can be coupled with the Keys, or any western Florida vacation.

                        I do not recommend swimming as a part of your visit.

                                                Unless it’s in the Pool.