Our tour of the Everglades began on the Gulf of Mexico side of Florida. We drove to the Smallwood Store. It is now a museum that shows what small town life was like in the Everglades.
Our main purpose for going here was to get a boat tour of the Everglades. We were told we would see an abundance of wildlife, lots of islands, learn some history of the Everglades, and get an up close look at what the Everglades is like.
The tour first took us to see the islands of the Everglades. The trees live both on the land and in the water. The trees and root systems make an impassable knot that requires lots of hard chopping and clearing to gain access. In many places, there are huge piles of shellfish shells that form a border and barrier at the edge of the land. The pile in the photo was between three and four feet deep. Lots of people had to eat a lot of shellfish to make that pile. We saw a raccoon walking along one of the shellfish piles.
After investigating the islands and passageways of this part of the Everglades, we went out into open water to find sea life. We met up with two dolphins that shared some time with us as they chased the boat. We also saw a giant sea turtle.
The captain then took us to an island populated by White Pelicans. There were also some cormorants with them.
We were about half way into our tour, so we started heading back. We sailed past an island where Brown Pelicans like to roost. You can see that the trees are half green and half white. The white is from the pelican droppings. The pelicans move on to a new island when they have covered the trees in white.
After we saw the Brown Pelicans, we did some faster travel across the open water to head back. When we approached the islands, we slowed down to be careful about shallow waters. The Captain did not want to run aground.
We were very close to our starting point when we reached this point. Our Captain told us he needed to run the engine at high speed for a short time as we were entering some very shallow water. He needed to keep his speed up so we would skim over any shallow places. It was interesting to watch beside and behind the boat to see that we were definitely stirring up the mud as we moved through the shallow water.
Once we got to the open water again, we were back at our starting point.
The time had passed quickly. It was an enjoyable and educational tour that delivered on all its promises.
It was a great tour!
From Smallwood Store, we headed across highway 41 to the eastern side of the Everglades. Our first stop was at HP Williams Roadside Park. We did not expect the abundance of animals that we saw.
We were not more that 20 feet from where we parked when we saw the first alligator. It was only about eight feet from us. Fortunately, we were up on a boardwalk.
About thirty feet down the boardwalk, we saw a bird called an Anhinga. There was another alligator.
Just a little further down, we saw a Black Anhinga and yet another alligator.
At the end of the 150 foot board walk, we saw a Green Heron. And you guessed it, a third alligator. It was not the same alligator.
If you look closely at the last two alligator pictures, you can see the birds in the picture with the alligator. The Everglades is a tough environment. The birds are looking for fish, and the alligators are closely watching the birds. Better be on the lookout, who’s looking at you?
The dirt road to the HP Williams Roadside Park continued north into the Everglades. We decided to see where the road went. We drove back about a mile where we found some White Ibises and another Anhinga. If any bird watchers are reading this, the source for the bird names was Google lens, not our great knowledge of birds.
We then returned to highway 41 and continued east to Kirby Sorter Roadside Park. The hike was along a boardwalk. It was a very nice boardwalk across a grassland portion of the Everglades. Our walk ended suddenly when we reached a portion of the walk that had recently been burned. It was an interesting fire, because it only burned the boardwalk. The surrounding vegetation was not harmed.
We observed a wide variety of plants and flowers on the grassland, in spite of the burned boardwalk.
We stopped at the Shark Valley Visitor Center. We did not travel the 17 miles down to the tower to see a broad view of the area.
Our suspicion of arson was confirmed when we asked a ranger here about the fire at Kirby Sorter.
We even saw an alligator in the roadside creek while we were driving down the road. They seem to be everywhere.
No trip to the Everglades is complete without an airboat ride. We chose Everglades Safari Park for our airboat ride.
In spite of the noise, an airboat ride is a great way to see the Everglades. We stayed on the water all the time. We also learned that airboats do not go in reverse, so you need to watch where you are headed.
There is water everywhere. The airboat captain said you can think of the Everglades as a very wide, very shallow river moving slowly to the south. It certainly is an unusual place. The variety of vegetation and animals is amazing. One thing we learned is that the Everglades is slowly shrinking. Between water usage and increasing population, the Everglades are noticeably smaller than a century ago.
The water can be very wide or exceptionally narrow. It can be very grassy or almost clear of vegetation. It is amazing to think that the Everglades are 100 miles wide and almost 80 miles from north to south.
After our airboat ride, we walked through the alligator park. The alligators were penned in a very large pen, but we were also in the pen with them. It was an interesting walk. There was also a show where one of the employees taught us about alligators. She was very comfortable being very close to them. She said it was because they are well fed and also tame. We were still glad to be on the other side of the fence for this show.
Before we left, we took a selfie with an airboat to remember the Everglades Safari Park.
It was a great day to visit the Everglades.