#86  Naples FL  Gulf Coast Visitor Center

November 20, 2019

A waterway follows Highway 41 east.   We spotted Ibis, Great White Herons and Anhinga all along the way.

We arrived at Rock Creek Campground in Naples only to discover this little park sat across the street from the airport!   The lady who checked us said you only noticed it when the wind was blowing just right. Wrong!

 At first it was a bit disconcerting to have planes fly over the tree tops a few sites away as they approached to land.  The Lear Jets were most spectacular.  But their noise was muted.  Take off however sounded like we were standing immediately behind a big jet getting its engines ready for take-off.  Maybe we were that close! We didn’t go over to investigate.

The Everglades Gulf Coast Visitor Center took about an hour to reach heading east back down Highway 41.  The center was housed in yet another trailer.

The park celebrates Ernest F Coe and Marjory Stoneman Douglas as founders and patrons of the Everglades.   Through their efforts the Everglades became a National Park.  The Marjory Stoneman Douglas Wilderness is the largest designated piece of land east of the Rocky Mountains.

These two skulls show the differences between the alligator and the crocodile.

Another exhibit showed how the Calusa Indians used shells, bones and hard woods to make tools.

A bit about the artifacts and their legacy provided more information.

These maps shows the distribution of the Historic Native Groups.

A display of sea turtles and another telling of the manatee added interest to this small center.  The 5 kinds of sea turtles are the same as we learned about on Jekyll Island…no surprise.

We left the Gulf Coast Visitor Center and drove into Everglades City, the closest town.  The height of the homes and apartments speaks to what they expect down here in the wet season.

Everglades City provides many airboat rides through the mangroves.  Some go out into the grasses too. We chose to hop aboard one of Captain Jack’s small airboat tours.  I can’t remember our pilot’s name, but he gave us a wonderful boat ride.

This channel leads you into the mangroves.  We think our pilot said 200 or more boats go in and out of this area a day, and boy are they NOISY.  You do where ear protectors on these rides.  We had soft spongy ear plugs when we went through the sawgrass.  Today we wore big sound suppressing head gear.  If you look carefully you can see a nice RV facing the water.  This is an exclusive motor coach resort with cost of a site in the millions.  Who would pay that and listen to these boats all the time?

Heading out into the Everglades…Mangroves

The mangroves create interesting patterns.  In some places the waterway is very narrow.

Some times the narrow paths opened onto a beautiful still area.

Other areas look like large lakes.

 In these areas our pilot would accelerate and do a 360 turn, crossing our own wake and sending water over the bow and onto the floor below our feet!  Fun!  I was glad the pilot told me to not leave my backpack on the floor!

On this particular day the sun created mirror images. 

Smaller passages opened to river like areas. Here we saw this guy or gal, about 14 feet basking in the sun.

Just around the bend, we spotted an alligator in the water. The pilot tried to lure him closer with marshmallows.  Apparently, alligators respond the plop on the water.  However very quick catfish often got the marshmallow first.  (The white bubbles next to the gator.)

A little further on we stopped to see the raccoons.  These are definitely smaller than the ones in our backyard on Pine Cone Drive in Bremerton, and they differ in coloring.  The pilot feeds these guys dog biscuits. It is obvious that these guys get fed by all the airboats, but they are still wild.

Our tour was ending and we needed to head back. What an exhilarating trip!

Six of us enjoyed the ride!  The couple behind Derrille and I were visiting from England!

We took the skipper’s advice and went to the City Seafood Café and Market for lunch.

Saw this guy drive by a couple times.  How cute is this?

Cute signs hung on the walls.  Lynn and I opted to have the Stone Crab. The Stone Crab has one big claw and then smaller ones.  Fishers only take the one big claw and through the crab back. The crab then grows a new big claw in about a year.  This claw is so tasty!  I ate it last time we were here.

Next, we stopped at Wooten’s Alligator Park.  Admission was free with our airboat tour. This signs speaks to people who have trouble with animals in captivity. It affirms that the animals here are well cared for, and basically have no where else to go.  Many were pets that people no longer wanted.

This huge pen caught our attention right away!  Lots of sleepy alligators populated this pen. We found out that most of these alligators are 40 to 50 years old.  Again….many were pets.  An alligator in captivity can live as long as 60 years.

This pen had younger alligators and some old turtles.  These vultures sat expectantly on the top of the fence around the pen.

An American Crocodile lounges on the raft.

This pen had both alligators and turtles again.  It didn’t say what kind of turtles.

I felt sorry for this panther, but he had a huge area in which to roam.  It was a hot day and this was probably the coolest spot.

The park had two Siberian Tigers.  Check out the lizard on the wood.

Mr. and Mrs. Lion lived next door to the tigers.

We completed the circuit and returned to the huge pond.  Vultures hang out on the island with the old alligators.  They also fly wherever they choose to in or out of the park.

Next we met Charlie!  He is about 20-25 years old and about 10 feet long.

His volunteer has worked with him for several years, and has great respect of Charlie.  He explained again that this are timid critters. They can run about 11 mph on land and stay under water for about 20 minutes.  We have heard before that they can go from 0-35 mph in a short burst.   As we knew before they lay about 40 eggs. However only 1 in 10 usually survive.  The ridges on their backs are called skutes and they act like solar panels to help keep the critters warm.  Experts believe that alligators have been around for 60 million years, and remained with a brain about the size of a grape. Alligators are a keystone species because their habits make it possible for other species to survive. In particular they dig holes in the mud that hold water during the dry season and allow others to live.

After the alligator information session guest could chose to hold an alligator.  This one is about 5 years old and getting too big for this event.  Everyone said it was heavy.

We headed east again on Hwy. 41 to the Big Cypress National Preserve.   This visitor center looks fairly new.   

Much of the information was old news to us.  The displays were well done and easy to understand.

I was glad to get a repeat on the ecological formations in the Everglades.

Another piece on the pythons.  Nice photo of one.

This panther statue surveyed the outside garden.  Reader boards surrounded the facility. In the back manatees would pass by. We briefly saw a nose or two break the surface of the water.

This turned out to be quite a day!

Thursday November 21, 2019

We drove to the Port Royal neighborhood in Naples. This very exclusive area sports a neighborhood of mansion with 3+ car garages in front, and moorage for their yachts in back.  This family even has a covered place for their boat.

These canals separate some streets.  A walkway passes by the canals.

On this day it seemed like everyone had workers remodeling, landscaping, painting, etc.

Welcome to the neighborhood!  Most homes have double wide circular drives. 

 It was garbage day, so each of these beautiful homes had the usual blue garbage can out front.

On the main street nearly every driveway supported a beautiful gated entry.

A house with waterfalls in the front yard rated as my very favorite! 

We took a drive through Naples Old Town which showcases elite little shops and dining areas very similar to other tourist destination towns.

On to St. Petersburg.