Canoeing Everglades (Florida) - November 1997

Thanksgiving break was a time of a deserved rest from all the semester hard work. We decided to make it an active rest. We borrowed a canoe, put it on a roof of our Escort and set off for Florida. We had great time canoeing for five days in the wilderness. The weather was warm (over 20C (75F) - very welcome change from cold Iowa fall) and we had enough time and opportunities to both relax and admire all different kinds of wildlife, especially birds.


Detailed maps of our canoe trip (180kB each)
Map 1 Map 2

We slept either on beaches or on so called checkees, built right above the sea.

With our big canoe, fighting waves on almost open sea was not always the easiest think to do.

The reward was then a lunch break at a tiny secluded island.

We were amazed by the abundance of fish and at some places by the frequency in which they were leaping into air. (Despite that, it was not easy to catch a jumping fish on a film.)

The most frequent birds we saw were ibis, pelicans and herons.

Pelicans were not only fishing or typically for them flying so low above the water that they were almost touching the water by their wings, but they were also resting in tree branches.

This blue heron was accompanying us through our several miles way in one narrow creek surrounded by mangroves.

Beautiful were especially mornings at about sunrise, in its calm and peace.

We also saw several ospreys either building or guarding their nests.

Despite of being in salt water, the preceding rains poured enough fresh water to inland bays to attract alligators. We saw a baby alligator, but no doubt that its mother was somewhere around.

We also saw endangered manatees (sea cows) and dolphins, which were sometimes playing less than five meters from our canoe. Taking an under water picture of a manatee is not the easiest think, therefore I show here at least its picture from a guide.

To our best experiences belonged seeing rare rosette spoonbills in one of the calm turns of Loppez river.

The only unpleasant think in Everglades national park is traffic of power boats with diesel engines, that in addition to making a lot of noise also visibly pollute the water. Idea of allowing only electric engine boats would be worth considering, even if is apparently "politically" not acceptable.


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Created 1997 by Marek Brejl