Skirting the Everglades National Park – On Our Way to the Keys

We Anchored Twice in the Everglades This Trip –
Russell Pass and Snake River –

We have cruised this stretch of the Everglades several times during our boating adventures. The remoteness of this part of southern Florida appeals to our nature-seeking personalities. Anchoring in remote locations will give a boater an opportunity to experience wildlife in its most secluded habitats. After settling into an anchorage here, we try to put everything aside for a while. We turn the music off, get binoculars out and sit quietly outside in the cockpit as long as we can before the bugs come out at dusk. This gives us an excellent chance to understand life in the wild. An enormous collection of birds, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians thrive here.

Alligators are at the center of the Everglade ecosystem. This is the only location in the world alligators and crocodiles live together. While shining a flashlight at night, we might be lucky enough to see a pair of alligator eyes peeking out from under mangrove trees. Another important symbol of the Everglades is the Florida panther, one of the most endangered species here. There’s an abundance of rare, and at-risk, birds in the Everglades. The Florida Bay estuary provides breeding habitat for wood storks, roseate spoonbills, and white and glossy ibis’, also many varieties of egrets and herons.

Last, but not least, are the snakes. The Everglades have several poisonous types of snakes, including rattlesnakes.

We stopped to anchor twice while transiting the Everglades, one night at Russell Pass and another at Little Shark River. On our last night in Snake River, we noticed an interesting event occurring with the bird population. As we sat in the cockpit, in the late afternoon, we saw birds gliding east over our boat and landing deep into the mangrove swamp that surrounded us. Usually flying in pairs they seemed to return home after a long day of fishing out in the bay.

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It was a little stormy out in the bay on this day, but not too bad. Everything had a yellow/green hue against an angry dark purply blue sky. Not too rocky though.

We only passed two or three boats on our way into the river.

  

It was a hot day, we dug out the little portable fan so the captain could keep cool.