Moving on…

People at Long Key State Park are so friendly. Our neighbor, Patrick, saw our dogs and gave us some great beta: Marathon Key had a dog beach! Cocoa Plum Beach. The dogs had been dealing well with being tied up all the time, but we wanted to give them (Bailey especially) a chance to run.

Mission: success.

The next day Michael decided he wanted to go snorkeling. I decided not to join him. Sure, it sounded like fun. But I went on a 3-hour snorkeling trip in the Florida Keys once. I spent about 2+ hours of that trip puking my guts out.

I have some serious motion sickness issues. So I dropped Michael off at the dock on Marathon Key, then I went and did laundry. That didn’t really take all that long (all our clothes fit in one load), so I took the dogs back to Cocoa Plum Beach. The second time around was just as much fun.

When I picked Michael back up, I did get a treat: a manatee! Check that one off the bucket list. But by the time I grabbed my camera, the sea cow was moving on, so all I got was this image of his tail.

Friday, March 10^th, we finally packed up and left the Keys. It was a sad day. But that morning our neighbor Patrick lent us his kayak. It was low tide, but we both took turns paddling around past the sandbar.

Now I can’t decide which I like better, a kayak or a SUP.

Friday afternoon brought us to Michael’s Aunt and Uncle, Clara and Carl, in Bonita Springs. We spent the weekend with them and they spoiled us with great food. We did spend some time in the Everglades, and I can tell you I’d love to come back here and explore this area by kayak or canoe.

But this Everglades adventure involved an airboat. Yep, we went on a Captain Jack’s Airboat Tour, which lasted about an hour. It wasn’t quite what I expected. But then, I’d never been on an airboat before.

Those things are loud – some of them really do have an airplane engine on the back, although ours was a car engine. These things are so loud I’m amazed we saw any wildlife at all. Mostly it was a speed tour through a mangrove swamp. It was like speeding through a tunnel.

And it was a blast.

Like I said, we did see some wildlife – one gator, and a couple of raccoons.

The rest of our boat was filled with German tourists, and they’d never seen a raccoon before. They went on and on about how cute they were. “What do you call them?” they kept asking. I finally answered: “Vermin.”

Our boat captain said that yeah, they’re vermin. But those little hedgehogs that people sometimes keep as pets here in the US? Over in England, hedgehogs are vermin.

Our airboat tour ticket also included admission to this wildlife “sanctuary,” which was actually a small zoo. There were lots of gators, a few crocodiles, as well as a lot of black vultures, although I don’t think they’re part of the sanctuary as they could all fly.

I was surprised to see their collection of big cats: a Florida panther, two lions, a tiger, and a Siberian tiger.

I once read this book called The Tiger by John Vaillant, a true story about a man-eating tiger in Russia’s far east, and the men tasking with tracking this tiger down. It’s an excellent read that I recommend highly – Vaillant is a brilliant writer. This book had pictures and while I understood that Siberian tigers were much larger than other tigers, I couldn’t quite grasp just how big they were.

These things are huge.

Although, looking at these pictures, I have to admit that something seems a bit off. Like this tiger has been inbred somehow. I mean, he doesn’t look like Kenny (the inbred tiger) but there’s something not quite right in the face.

It kind of stands to reason – this is a wildlife sanctuary in Everglades City, Florida. I’m sure these animals were all rescued from some other (worse) situation, not captured from the wild. At least, that’s what I hope.

I would have spent more time with the big cats, but I wanted to see the last alligator show of the day, at 4pm. The show did not disappoint.

That’s Levi with Charlie the alligator. Levi told us he was a 9^th generation Floridian and had been handling alligators since he was eight years old. “Yes folks,” he told us, “I’ve literally been stupid for my entire life.”

A lot of the stuff he did – like putting his hand inside the gator’s mouth – is possible because of the animal’s narrow field of vision. Charlie couldn’t actually see Levi’s hand, or arm, or even much of Levi. Alligators don’t rely on their eyesight for hunting, instead going by their stronger senses of smell and touch.

I didn’t get a picture of the moment he put his face inside the gator’s mouth, but I did watch him wipe the sweat off his face before attempting that move.

Afterward, we got to hold a baby alligator. Well, it was 2 years old, but still. I couldn’t believe how soft it was.

My favorite part of this picture is the poster right behind Michael: Hold & Hug an Alligator.

Neither one of us hugged the alligator.