I have been back from my Florida trip for some time now. In fact I have had a whol other trip since which you will hear more about soon. I have been playing some serious catch up and I’m off on another trip this weekend for a whole week. But slowly I will be making posts sharing my adventures and photos.

This post is from my Florida trip.  After about a week in the Melbourne area photographing amazing birds and doing a little coastal kayaking in the mangrove swamps I had the opportunity to spend a few days with my buddy Jack exploring and photographing the Big Cypress National Preserve, a part of the Everglades. Wow! what an amazing place. The Cypress trees are very cool and if you are a tree-huger this place is not to be missed. Walking around in the calf deep water under these giants is an experience I will never forget. It was actually a dry time in the swamps as you can see by the high water marks on this big boy above. As with almost everywhere in Florida that I encountered the wildlife was abundant. Yes, there are alligators in these waters! Luckily I did not see any here.

Another highlight from Big Cypress National Preserve was kayaking the Turner River Canoe Trail. Jack and I did not get to paddle the whole thing, but we did have a great day doing a section of it.

The Turner river is a great way to get off the beaten path and see a cross section of the Preserve. We started in the big cypress trees loaded with Spanish moss and fought our way through the thick water plants watching ducks, osprey, herons, and alligators.

As we descended, the river narrows and we enter a transition zone where the cypress begins to give way to mangroves indicating you are getting closer to the coast. The river only descended an inch or two over the long distance that we had paddled, yet that was enough to cause a whole new ecosystem to evolve.

We were delighted to see a water lily and took this as a good place to turn around and begin the paddle back to the put-in. The sun was setting anyway and we did not want to get caught out in the dark.

It’s amazing how ones comfort lever will change with exposure. I must say I was a bit nervous about the whole alligator thing at first. Alligators seem to be everywhere in Florida. I knew this from a previous trip to the state one college spring break many years ago. But I had not actually been sharing the same water with them on that trip. Now, here I was paddling a kayak in a swamp and they were all around me. With time I had become somewhat acclimated I guess. I actually got out of my kayak, after a good look around first,  and wading in waist deep water took the water lily picture.  I was even brave enough to pull out my camera while tenuously balancing in my tipsy kayak and grabbed this last shot of Jack and this gator.