January 27-29, 2018 Everglades National Park, Florida

Welcome to the unofficial mosquito capital of Everglades National park. Out of the 43 species of mosquitoes only 13 species bite people.  Flamingo is the best place to test mosquito repellent. In days gone by when the ‘skeets’ were bad old timers in Flamingo would say “ you can swing a pint cup in the air and get a quart of mosquitoes”. Fortunately for us the Mosquito meter has it in the enjoyable range right now. They have not been bothering us.Flamingo visitors center. The rest of the building is closed from hurricane Irma damage.  Irma made landfall with winds of 142 mph and 3-5 foot storm surge.  

Osprey, American crocodile- this is the only place in the USA they live, manatee’s live in the bay. Wood storks flying over head. Osprey on a nest, black night shade  flowers , yellow flower with a butterfly and a tent in the campground in the wind today.

These maps show the area here. We are at the red arrow. The right map shows all of the waterways and campsites here.  Average trip duration by motorboat from Flamingo to Everglades city on the inland water way is 7 hrs, by canoe 9 days. Sunset tonight. 

Another sunset from camp.  Flamingo Visitors center from the bay. The cloud looks like a plume of smoke, but it is only a cloud. John paddling close to shore.  We then paddled up the Buttonwood canal, no wind there.

80’s and less windy than most of the week. We decided to try paddling Florida Bay, which is between the Everglades and the keys. There were lots of birds, but it was rough, so we didn’t go very far. Hurricane Irma blew all the sea grass off the bay floor and left a layer of mud, so the water is murky, rather than the sky blue color it usually is. The ranger said it could take a couple years for it to settle out and the grass to re grow. Little blue heron, great egret flying away, great blue heron, pelican and a hibiscus flower. I paddled up to the dock in the marina and there were all these sea gulls lined up looking at me, like my fan club. Below them is a big alligator. We saw this one when we paddled up the Buttonwood canal and when we paddled back. He hadn’t moved. 

The bay was too rough so we came back in and paddled up the Buttonwood Canal instead. Big mangrove tree with it’s ‘prop’ roots.

John at lunch. There was no solid ground so we ate sitting in the boats.The almost full  blue moon in sunset. The blue moon is the second full moon in a month or 13th in one year. The full moon is  still a couple days away. 

Sunset from camp.

January 25-26, 2018 Everglades, Florida

It was cloudy, windy and 75 today.

We hiked 3.6 miles on  the Snake Bight trail. A bight is a bay within a bay. The trail guide says "Enter another world as you travel through a tropical hardwood hammock with dozens of tropical tree species, Bird watching may be good from the boardwalk". We got to the bay at low tide and it was only a mud flat with no birds. John is walking in grass with seed heads taller than he is. Bees on white flowers, scorpion tail and a grass seed. 

Grass seeds, yellow flowers and a pink one. I don't know the names of the flowers here. 

John walking in a tropical tree tunnel. Air plant, quill leaf and a cactus.

Cactus, painted leaf in the poinsettia family and two photos of moon flowers. They only bloom at night. John in a tropical tree tunnel, with different tropical trees.

A tree engulfed by a strangler fig, red coral bean flowers, green berries and a round tree or vine. Sunset from the campground.

High 70's and partly cloudy, but partly sunny and windy.  We paddled Hell's Bay canoe trail with Jack and Sue a couple we met in the campground. They are retired and  went on vacation a couple months ago and forgot to go home.  The trail guide says the trail weaves through a network of mangrove creeks and ponds to a series of small bays. The trail is marked with 160 white pipes. Old timers describe the route as " Hell to get into and hell to get out of" You may see alligators and birds and in the summer be prepared for many insects. We went 7 hours round trip in 4 hours. The put in is a mangrove tunnel.

John with Jack and Sue ahead in their canoe. Narrow channel between mangroves.  Without the trail markers you would get hopelessly lost, there are thousands of channels. 

Parts of the trail are tunnels, narrow channels with branches above. Other areas widen out a bit. The colors are lovely. Bright green with  tropical blue skies and puffy white clouds. With warm soft air.

It was very windy in the open areas. Here are Sue and Jack  leaning into the wind and paddling hard to get across.

January 23-24, 2018 Everglades National Park, Florida

The government opened back up and we headed for our reserved site in Flamingo Campground in the Everglades.

The alligators at Oasis visitors center in Big Cypress Preserve on our way to the Everglades, a sign about alligators with a photo of one on the road, a gator gliding down the water way- leaving no wake. The water is full of fish, lots of food for the gators etc. On our way to the Everglades, Johnny's toy ( John must have bought that without my knowledge. . .), airboat rides and alligators and stay a minimum of 15 feet from the gators. No overnight truck or RV parking  in the Walmart parking lot.

South Central Florida is mostly farms, kind of like the central valley in California. We saw corn, tomatoes, squash and orchids but there are many more crops that come from here.  Twisty trees in the campground and dried mud left from hurricane  Irma.  Beautiful historic downtown Homestead. 

Everglades National Park, the beginning of the drive though the pinelands in the park.

The bus in our campsite. Only 1 of 4 loops in the campground is open. The rest are not cleaned up from the hurricane yet. The bathroom only has cold showers. A trail blocked with fallen trees from the hurricane.

Sunset in the campground.The next day it was in the high 70's, sunny and humid. We went kayaking on the 9 Mile lake canoe trail. The trail guide says this scenic trail passes through a shallow grassy marsh with scattered mangrove islands. Watch for alligators and wading birds. The trail is marked with numbered white poles. John leading the way through the mangroves. 

Jeff Sambur is still visiting with us. Here he is fighting his way through a tight turn in my inflatable kayak. Me in my lake kayak when the trail widened up some. It was warm enough to boat in my bathing suit. 

A huge cockroach that was on my chair under the bus this am. Yellow bladderpods and a pink flower on the canoe trail. A loud crow, the trail map and a sign that says done don't approach the gators or snakes (duh) and vultures may damage cars. Air plants growing on the mangroves, sweet yellow acacia flowers and seed pod from a west indies mahogany tree in the campground. 

John still leading the way. The water is really clear here,it is very beautiful. John and Jeff ahead. 

Jeff and I switched boats. The inflatable is harder to paddle and Jeff was lagging behind. It does not help that the floor of the boat is separating from the sides so the bottom drags on the plants underneath. Anyway I am now in the inflatable and Jeff in the lake boat. Wide open grassy marsh with mangrove islands, puffy clouds and blue sky. It is much easier to deal with hot and humid when you are the water. 

More wide open grassy marsh with mangrove islands.  John ahead in a mangrove tunnel. 

John took these of me coming through the mangrove tunnel. 

Back at the put in of Nine Mile lake John is having a serious discussion with a crow about taking food from the boats. The crow did not listen and was after the food in my life jacket. John chased him off. 

Sunset on Florida Bay by the walk in campsites.