I got up early yesterday morning, dropped Shaun off at the library, and Shawn (with a “w”), Josh and I headed for a “marina” to meet up with our guide. After getting the boat off the trailer, we were ready to go.
Captain John looked like he stepped out of the movie “Jaws”. He had white hair, a button up shirt with the top four buttons undone, showing his shark-tooth necklace, and kaki shorts. He gave us a quick briefing about not letting any of our things fly into the giant fan behind us and we were off.
My goal for the day was to touch an alligator. Not the mouth or the teeth or anything stupid, just reach out and touch one, until I saw this sign. “Well, I’m cool with the second part of that rule, in fact, I’m not sure there is someone that would have a problem with the ‘no molesting alligators’ rule”, I thought, “but I wonder if Captain John will bend the rules for that first part”.
We started out down the channel that looked like it was man made winding it’s way toward Lake Okeechobee. After a about ten minutes of hot wind in my face, we turned a corner and slowed down. I could see things moving around in the water and figured they were alligators, but as soon as we got close they would dart down under the dark brown water.
Soon we started to see baby alligators walking along the side of where we were drifting. I think we must have seen at least fifty running around, jumping in the water and swimming around. I would guess that most of them were around four to six feel long, but I don’t really know. Captain John pulled the boat over to the side and stopped the engine. All the little alligators ran away and dove in the water. He gave us a few facts about where they lay their eggs and how they can eat once every two to three years if they want. Then he complained about the amount of water being drained from Lake Okeechobee and sent “down to the rich people in Palm Beach“. “Don’t let anyone fool you,” he said, “that’s exactly what is happening.” Ummm, okay, settle down Captain John.
We asked if we could catch a baby alligator and he went into a rant about how he used to be able to come out at night, catch one and flip it upside down, rub it’s belly, let the girls kiss them and then let them go. “That was before the cops started arresting you for everything”, he told us. I don’t know if he thought we were police or we were going to tell on him, but he was pretty hesitant to hop out of the boat and give it a shot.
I think if we pressed we could have gotten him to, but he was wearing a shark tooth necklace, so I wasn’t going to argue much. After floating around for about twenty minutes, trying to catch a picture of anything that moved, we started back.
It was a quick trip, but we had a good time, got pretty sun burnt, and saw some alligators. Thanks Shawn and Josh for making it happen. See you next time, when Captain John will take us shark hunting.
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That’s a great pic of you guys looking tough in the boat but I am wondering about the cumulative decision making of the three of you. Did someone forget to tell you that it is August in S. Florida and the best wardrobe choice for a day out in the sun is anything OTHER than black shirts?
nice man, I guess its a good thing you didnt try and feed and of the gators, you might have been one of the only things that they’ve eten in the last year so that might been a bad thing… call me up later
What happened to all your hair? You didn’t visit the evil salon woman again did you?
Beth
It was pretty fun. Although I think we could have talked the boat Capt guy into grabbing one. And Brian to answer your question from a personal opinion, black is slimming, I don’t care how hot it was.
what? no pics of Captain John??
what do rich people in palm beach want with swamp water?
….personally, I am glad that cpt. john didn’t let you touch an alligator, but sorry you were dissapointed.
Well Lake Okeechobee is not a swamp. It’s actually our major source of water to drink and, well, water stuff.
So if it’s being drained for the rich people in Palm Beach they probably don’t have water restrictions like we do -.-
How fun for you Brody! I am so glad you got to do that. And on the black shirt thing, I don’t know about the others, but Brody dosen’t wear many other colors than black shirts.
good point on the lack of color in brody’s wardrobe but he could have at least ‘phil wickhamed’ the choice to give himself some breathing room!
I wonder how many ladies Captian John managed to get to kiss the gator’s belly?
Thomas
Raquel~ sorry about calling your main source of drinking water a swamp…. consider it ignorance, I just assumed that all alligators lived in swamps! I assume you don’t swim in that lake then?
Seriously: Why WERE you guys all wearing black? The heat index was well above 100.
America needs to know.
please tell me that ‘phil wickham-ing’ has nothing to do with a v-neck…
Truth is when Brody called me when I woke up that morning to ask me what I was wearing. I told him black, and he said perfect since that is the only colored T-shirt Brody had with him.
I called up Josh and said you need to wear a black T-shirt, so we could look cool. Truth is I just didn’t want to wear camoflauge or flannel as I might have been mistaken for a native of Clewiston, or say Illinoise.
But I am sticking with the original story I wore black because it is slimming.I don’t care what color I had on, I am fat it is hot I am going to sweat. Wait I had a Camo hat on, oh well.
Take out a “truth is” or two above for it to make more sense.
It’s alright [:
We don’t have any lakes to swim in. Which stinks because even though I live in Miami I hate the beach because of the salt. I want to go swim in a lake somewhere!
And of course he’s talking about a V-neck. Haha.
There is this place about an hour outside of Ft.Lauderdale called “Billy’s Swamp Safari.” They have air boats and swamp buggies (which looks like someone stripped down a school bus, threw a cage around it, and slapped a boat engine on it…sounds crazy but it worked)…next time you are in the area you’ll have to check it out…ya know…in case you ever wanted to know what happens when you cross breed Florida with Africa…
My shirt is a lowercase v-neck. It’s about as Phil Wickamed as I get. He’s all about the uppercase. The black was simply to look intimidating to the alligators… you know like scary bikers or something… yeah.. that’s it.
Oh well of course, Brody.
It’s easier than doing that whole zig-zagging thing.
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