Swamp adventure

So I said that Busch gardens was cool. Well, it was. But this was something else. Today, I went on an Airboat wildlife tour of THE cypress lake. It was amazing.

It took an hour to drive there but it was worth it. When we got out of the car we saw this wooden cabin perched on the edge of the swamp with a few pontoons. This gentle giant of a man strode towards me and Jason, it turned out this was our captian, Pete. He had been born and raised here, and you could tell. His hat, dark, tanned wrinkly skin, a silvery stubbly beard, and one hell of a drawn florida accent. He seemed to know everything there was to know about fish and wildlife and knew the massive swamp like the back of his hand. He even knew the local alligators and where they usually hang out. He promised us we would see at least one in the wild.

It was a strange feeling, flying across a swamp at forty miles an hour, wearing shades and ear defenders. But hell I enjoyed it for all that it was worth. I actually video taped what it was like going at full speed, just to show you guys. That horrible sound you can hear is the sound of an 8 litre chevy engine conected to a propeller. And those horrible purple lines on the recording is because my digital camera doesn't like direct sunlight. About 3 quarters of the way through the clip we encounter a 9 foot alligator hiding in the reeds, but he was unfortunately too well hidden for my camera to pick out. And right near the end of the clip you'll see a splash in the water, and that was a swamp turtle jumping off a log. But once again, my camera didn't quite make the shot.



The biggest alligator we saw was 11 feet long. Here he is. Not a brilliant picture, but the angle from which I was shooting wasn't brilliant.



Also, there were these random cows that just walked around in the swamp. Somebody said, 'Doesn't the noise of the airboat scare them?'
to which Pete said, 'Na, they don't care about nothin''. He was right, because just as he said this, a cow turned around and looked at me as if to say, 'Yeah, what of it?'



Amongst the other wildlife I saw was:

• Bald Eagles
  
• Storks and Herons of various species
• turtles
• Baby alligators
• Moorhens and Coots
• Vultures
• Egrets
• My brother Jason
  

So there you go. Thats pretty much it.