Swimming with Alligators

Yesterday, Mister Sense of Adventure, Emily, Andrew, Caroline, and I jumped in the car and drove to Wakulla Springs (well technically there were about 3 attempts to "jump in the car" before we actually remembered everything we wanted to bring). :)

Yea! Wakulla Springs.


I'd been telling the Mister about this place for years: the place where man and beast swim together (that's no log floating over Andrew's shoulder in the picture below...look above the green raft), where wild creatures are observed in their natural habitat. It's the default field trip for every school in the area.
We got there around 11:30 and booked our jungle cruise for an hour later. That left us enough time to muster our courage and take a dip in the 68 degree water...yikes! We had a snack and then went on the boat ride. Then we came back, ate our picnic, and swam some more till about 4:30.

THE BOAT RIDE

The boat ride was excellent. We saw all sorts of turtles, birds, fish, plants, trees, and of course...ALLIGATORS. According to Andrew, we saw 19 alligators. 2 were fairly young, 3 were pretty large (including the 10-footer that was lounging right outside the swimming area). Here's one that was on our side of the boat...he is one of the small guys we saw, but what a view!





The best part of the ride for me was an unexpected guest that I‘d never seen before at Wakulla. As we were sitting on the dock cramming down chips and soda, the people around us started running toward the waters edge and pointing. I figured an alligator was swimming close to the dock, so I went over to check it out. Instead, not 6 feet away swam a manatee! How cool! Manatees are fairly rare and to see one that close…well that’s awesome!



Later, in the middle of the river boat tour, our guide stood up and walked to front of the boat (Emily: ummm…so who’s driving?). He came back grinning and said “I’m going to kill the engine, there’s a herd of 8 manatees in front of us.” What?!? Cool! And it was…These huge gray islands were floating all around us. In fact, there was even a little calf out there! We bumped into the group again on the way back up the river. Here are the pics we took of the “sea cows”…see if they don’t deserve their nickname….



Side note: The cyprus trees along the river are amazing. They send out roots into the water and all around that many people call "cyprus knees" because they just jut up out of the ground and water like a bent leg. You can see the roots and the crazy cone shaped trunks in some of the pics.

BACK TO THE SWIMMIN' HOLE

Mister Danger is my Middle Name, Emily, and Andrew all jumped off the high dive. The boys really got on a roll and jumped together 3 times after lunch. We all swam out to the docks together where Miss Caroline jumped off a few times. Lame old cousin Jilly didn't do much jumping, but she did catch everyone else on film! Here's a video of the guys jumping...

Videos
#1 proves Galileo's theory about falling objects
#2 is Mister and Andrew jumping off the lower level...kinda =]
#3 is the last jump of the day

It was a really fun day and we all had a blast. So...moral of the story? Come visit us! We'll take you to see the alligators. ;)