December 15, 2012 Silver River, Florida

I wanted to take the glass bottomed boat on the Silver river. John said he was not paying $70 for us to ride a glass bottomed boat when we could paddle up there. Up river 5 miles, and then float back. A couple we met in the Okefenokee swamp told us the Silver river was the most beautiful river in Florida.  I have to agree. It had more people on it than the others we boated-mostly by ourselves and was a lot more work. Took us 4 hours to paddle up to the spring. 2 hours back. 80 degrees, sunny day.

Silver river. The spring  pumps out 550 million gallons of  crystal clear water a day. The bottom is white sand and river grass. The sides are lined with jungle like foliage, palm trees, palmettos, cypress trees and gum trees hung with spanish moss.

An alligator in the pond lilies. Old cypress tree.

They have been taking glass bottomed boats on the Silver river for over 100 years. One of the entrepreneurs put monkeys on one of the islands to enhance his tours, they escaped into the forest and multiplied and are still here.  they hung from the trees and raced along the bank, I assume begging for food. I thought they were going to swarm the boat and flip me out. A couple of ibis in a big cypress tree.

The boats at the state park put in. You can drag your boat 0.7 miles to the put in and float 3 miles down or rent a canoe there at river side and paddle up stream 2 miles to the head spring  and back or paddle upstream 5 miles and back.  Near the dock there were literally 100’s of ibis’s back in the trees. More flying in, there voices combined to a really loud noise.

cool old cypress trees. John got me a this lake kayak for Christmas. It is wonderful. Much easier to paddle and I don’t have to sit in water. I LOVE it.

John got this photo of this alligator on the bank. The head spring at the top has been a tourist attraction for over 100 years. Here is part of the amusement park and one of the glass bottomed boats. The spring is 65 feet long and 12 feet high. It was packed with people, noisy and crowded. The glass bottom boat tours were really short and don’t go very far. We made a far wiser choice to paddle it. Yes John was right again.

the water is really clear. You can see all the way to the bottom, see turtles, fish, alligators, plants. Above are some mullet. Mullet are cool, they jump out of the water whenever they feel like it. Jump for joy.

John floating back. An anhinga drying it’s wings on a cypress.

Pond lily leaves, a spider lily near the cypress.

reflections, Sue’s new boat.

We took so long we got to see sunset on the way back. We were hoping they didn’t lock the gates at dusk.

John in the sunset and sunset.

Ibis, blue heron, egret, moor hens, pickle weed, Brazilian elodea with duck weed around it, anhinga, turtle, cormorants. We also saw great blue herons, green herons, night herons and many other birds we didn’t know what were. Lots and lots of birds on this river.