Everglades Nat'l Park Marina

We headed out to a beautiful cruising day to go from Russell Pass to our next anchorage at the Little Shark River. It was truly fun to cruise out on the Gulf without big waves, fog, cold, or darkness. Please see Gulf Crossing posting from early December if you do not understand this reference.

By early afternoon we entered the mouth of the Little Shark River. This was one of the most beautiful anchorages we had been in. Also one of the most quiet places we've ever experienced.

The water was completely calm, providing a great reflection of the mangrove forest that lines the river.

The tide was slowly flowing in and then gradually stopped and reversed, turning the boat around for this great sunset view. It was incredibly quiet, as a flock of seagulls flew up the river, we could hear their wings beating in the air. We had heard there were alligators here, but did not see any.

The next morning we continued down the coast to the very southern end of the Florida mainland and made a turn to port. We could see a beautiful beach to our left, which we later learned is 12 miles long and only accessible by water. Flamingo, in the Everglades National Park, has a visitors center and a marina. There are tour boats that run out of the marina, camping, and a wilderness water trail designed for small boats, canoes and kayaks. Ever since we left Fort Myers we had been seeing small dead fish in the water that died from cold shock during the recent cold snap. When we entered the small harbor at Flamingo, it was filled with larger dead fish and the odor was not pleasant. There was only one other boat in the harbor, so we had our choice of slips. We decided to place ourselves upwind from the water and the smell so pulled along side the sea wall on the south side. We've got a great breeze and no smell. Here's the view from our back deck with the Gulf in the background.

This part of the park is one of the few places in the world where crocodiles and alligators live together, and there are about 5 American Crocodiles that hang around the marina. I had to hop a boundary fence to get this shot but it was worth it. Yes, it's real, pretty cool, eh? Check out those teeth.

Here's a couple of them snuggling up together. The blend in so well to the wall that you'd probably walk right by and not even notice them. There are about 1500 of them in the park, just a few decades ago there were only 50.

Today we were ready for some exercise, so we unloaded the bikes, grabbed a park trail map and chose a 13 mile loop combination of roads and hike/bike trails. Yes, 13 miles is a good distance, but it's very flat, how hard could it be? We turned off the road onto Rowdy Bend, described as "an overgrown old road bed". Not too bad at first, just some bumps from small tree roots...but then the mud began. It was edge to edge, impossible to avoid. You can see it in this picture, but trust me, this is minor compared to what followed. Long sections of deep gray, clay like mud, the wheels were buried. We discussed turning around (twice), but decided to continue. I gripped my handlebars with white knuckles, and pushed my pedals with all I had. Got through most of it, but (twice) I just couldn't do it and had to put my feet down into ankle deep muck. Yuk !! By this time we figured we were half way, so pressed on.

Finally it got drier and intersected with the next trail, Snake Bight. This trail must have been a park created path, it was well elevated above the mangrove swamp, straight and dry !!

When we got back to the road, we still had 6 miles to go ... head on into about a 10 mph wind. Whew, it was quite an ordeal, we had to hose off the bikes, my shoes and ourselves when we got back. We relaxed for the rest of the afternoon and will be heading out for Marathon tomorrow am. The past couple of weeks have been great ... the 80 degree sunny days, the pristine beaches and totally isolated anchorages have made this stretch of the trip one of our favorites so far.