A day away from roller coasters and other theme park type rides, took us south to the wetlands area for a swamp boat ride. Those of you old enough to remember Gentle Ben (a TV show about a boy who owned a bear), will remember the swamp air boat that the boy’s father used on the swamp. Liz and I were both fans of the show and so really wanted to go for a swamp boat ride.
Our first choice of swamp boat rides company was fully booked and so we found another. Wild Florida Boats, were really good and although a whisker more expensive had other things to see and do along side the swamp boat ride. You could go for a communal ride with 20 or so strangers, or opt for a private boat ride for just the 4 of us. We took the latter option and booked up a ride for 4, having swapped about our schedule to fit in the swamp boats as they all seemed to be fully booked on our day of choice.
As we got on the boat a shower in the middle distance, was moving from one side of the lake to the other. At this point I’ll explain that the part of the swamp we visited was adjacent to and also part of the lake area / shore line. Our driver and guide explained that parts of the swamp area may only be 3cm deep, whilst others are much deeper at 3 foot. They have lots of islands / high ground dotted about and cattle roam freely on the shores of the lake and around the little islands, crossing where they please. Despite the lake being home to about 1100 alligators, the cattle and alligators live side by side quite happily. The cattle eat the grass and the alligators (no they don’t eat the cattle, not even the baby ones), eat fish and turtles.
Luke asked lots of questions, the alligators seemed to fascinate and interest him and he just couldn’t stop asking questions. One of the questions he asked was if the alligators would eat a person. The guide explained that the alligators although they were between 8 and foot in size as adults (female or male respectively), they are generally scared of people and so leave them alone. They will bite if you attack or disturb a nest, even by accident – not knowing the nest was there. But you shouldn’t be poking about in the nesting season!
The bulk of the 1100 alligators hide in the deep reed beds during the hot days and swim to find food in twilight, at night or v early in the morning. So it seems if you fell overboard the best thing to do is to swim to a jetty or grassy bank and keep in open water as the alligators leave you alone. Not that any of us were planning to take a quick dip! Last question Luke had was what happened is an alligator bit you. The short answer was that it was labelled a “nuisance” and a State Exterminator would turn up and shoot it.
We avoided the rain shower at the beginning of our ride, by out running it and heading right from the jetty away fro the rain. We saw this pink crane like bird (not a flamingo before you think of that), our guide got excited and told us it was quite rare, but he omitted to tell us what it was!
We also saw an osprey and a bald eagle but they were too fast for us to get much of a look at them. The problem is that a swamp boat is very, very noisy. You have to wear ear defenders as the fan noise is deafening, consequently you couldn’t creep up on anything that had even the remotest chance of hearing you approaching!! When we cut through reed beds, over some very lovely waterlillies and patches of grass (which were a bit bumpy), we swung gently left and left again. At this point we were heading for the rain shower which had moved to the center of the lake. Our guide blasted through it, I think he thought it’d not be too wide and a few minutes would see us through it. Wrong. The rain blasted us, it felt like a power wash on full blast. We had no choice but to hang on and shut our eyes. Eventually our driver stopped and yelled for us to get the seat covers out from under the seats and use them as lap covers which we did. Luke pretty much hid under it but Matty and Liz in the front seats took the brunt of the rain. It seems Mr Waterproof gets wet just like the rest of us!! Once through the rain we drove on pretty quickly and began to dry out a bit, then to our surprise we swung around a full 360 which entertained the boys. The driver then drove the boat over the open water and full throttle directly for the back which wasn’t really steep but was steep enough to alarm all of us! We glided up on to the cattle lined bank, scattering them all like skittles as they ran this was and that. We parked switched off the engine and from here our guide explained that Florida is the second largest Beef producing state to Texas. I found this surprising but as he was part time guide and part time ranch owner so I guess we have to take his word for it!
We all found the hour long swamp ride a really great experience and despite the rain we were delighted to have done it. I found it interesting that in June the state environmental boffins (their equivalent of the Environment Agency) drain 3 to 4 foot of water out of the lake and swamp, to ready the area to receive all the rainwater that falls in July – September and runs out of the drains, tributaries and other waterways into the network of lakes in the area.
The afternoon was spent seeing a bit more of the Florida Mall as Matty and Luke wanted to pop back for a few souvenirs, baseball caps and so on.