Florida Vacation-Day 7-Part 2

Sadly, this is my final installment of my Florida vacation photos.  On our last evening in Florida, we decided to take a sunset kayak tour through the mangroves.  Neither my husband nor I had ever kayaked before, but we were feeling adventurous, which turned out to be a huge mistake.




Everything started off smoothly. Since we had never kayaked before, we decided to get a tandem kayak.
After a few minutes, we got a rhythm and made it through the open water pretty easily. But then we hit the mangrove tunnels.



The tunnels were pretty tights, and in the very first one, we passed an alligator. (Sorry, I didn't get a photo.) But we took it slow, and we finally made it through.



For a few hours, we alternated paddling through open water and tunnels.  It was actually pretty relaxing.  Here is a short video I took on my phone:



To be honest, though, I didn't really paddle all that much. I was actually concentrating on taking photos. (Shocking, huh?) I really liked the reflections in the water.



(Submitting this to Best Shot Friday)





And why did we decide to go kayaking? All so we could see this:









(Submitting to LEM Photo Challenge: Water)


But then it was pitch black, and we still had to paddle back. In order to keep track of each other, each kayak tied a glow-in-the dark stick to the back of their boat, and we all wore head lanterns.



It was very dark and very creepy. This is a short video I filmed on my phone:



Shortly after this was filmed, the incident happened. After we got back into the open water, we stopped paddling to look to our right because we could see an alligator in the distance. Even though it was completely dark out, we could still see it because alligators' eyes glow orange in the dark. (Check out this photo by John Moran.) The water we were in was only a couple of feet deep. Even though we weren't paddling, we were still drifting, and we collided with an alligator. We could feel our kayak actually lodge on top of it, and our entire kayak started to shake. Neither my husband nor I knew what to do, so we didn't do anything, hoping the alligator would just swim away. After all, before we got in our kayak, our tour guide told us that you would have to smack the alligator about 5 times in the head with the paddle to get an alligator to attack you. We must have ran into a particularly grouchy alligator, however, because this alligator decided to fight. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a sudden commotion and I heard a big splash, and when I turned my head, I was face to face with a 10 foot alligator who was leaping out of the water and coming straight towards my head with its mouth wide open. I am not exaggerating when I say it must have been 8 inches away from me at most. Some how, time completely slowed down, though, because in that split second, I some how had the ability to know exactly what I had to do. I took my paddle, pulled it towards me, and then jabbed it right in the alligator's mouth. The alligator fell back into the water and then my husband and I hightailed it out of there.

I wish I had a video of that to show you, but, fortunately, I was holding my paddle instead of my camera at the time. The funny thing is I guess everyone knows how obsessed I am with photography because someone actually asked if I took a photo. Um....no. I was kind of busy.

So that was the end of our big Florida adventure, which turned out to be way too adventurous for me.  After that, I was very happy to return to New York City where the only wildlife I have to contend with is the pigeons.




Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

Florida Vacation-Day 7-Part 1

On our last full day of vacation, we decided to explore another area of the Everglades National Park: the 10,000 Islands, where we saw........no not alligators. We saw dolphins!





And a bald eagle!









We also saw some other pretty birds.













And we saw this itty bitty baby turtle. Isn't this just the cutest thing you have ever seen?

Florida Vacation-Day 6-Part 3

After the airboat tour, we went back into the Everglades National Park to take a bicycle tram tour of Shark Valley where we saw, you guessed it, more alligators. (Submitting this photo to Texture Thursdays.)



But we also saw lots of beautiful birds, including this snail kite, which is apparently on the bucket list for most birders.



We also saw lots of blue herons. I think they are really pretty, so I took lots of photos of them.









Afterwards, on our drive to our hotel in Everglades City, we passed Monroe Station and, of course, I stopped to take a photo.



I wonder what it used to be.

Florida Vacation-Day 6 Part 2

So that you don't get too bored with seeing my vacation photos, I decided to break Day 6 of my vacation up into 3 parts.  So, here is part 2.

After we left Homestead, we drove up north to the Tamiami Trail, where we got lunch at Coopertown Restaurant.  No, neither my husband nor I ate alligator.  After lunch, we took an airboat tour, which was a lot of fun, although I was surprised about how fast we went and how loud it was

The boat we went on looked like this:



It was very pretty.







With lots of pretty birds around.  (Submitting this photo to 52 Weeks of Happiness because I am really happy with how sharp it is.)








But I would not want to fall in.




Yes, we were surrounded by alligators.







Again,  You can see more photos of the airboat tour on my Flickr.

Florida Vacation-Day 6-Part 1

Before I get started, I wanted to say that I have decided to submit some of my photos to some photo challenges this week, so you will see some links below. There are tons of weekly photo challenges, so I just picked a few.

We spent the sixth day of our vacation in the Everglades.  First, we went in the Homestead entrance of the Everglades National Park and we walked around the Anhinga and Gumbo Limbo Trails..



We saw lizards



And insects (Submitting this photo to Macro Mondays.)



And alligators



And some baby alligators.  Cute.



But still scary looking.



Although I am not sure which was scarier: the alligators or the vultures.



One of them actually barked at me.  Yes, barked.  Like a dog.



The Anhinga Trail is named after the anhinga birds which are common to the area.  They stand with their wings spread out to dry them.







Baby anhinga.



There were also lots of pretty blue herons.

I am submitting this photo to Sweet Shot Tuesdays. You are supposed to submit your best photo of the week, but I am so behind on processing my photos, I am going to submit the best photo I processed this week.







And some other pretty birds too.





And more alligators.





Believe it or not, there are actually more photos from the Anhinga and Gumbo Limbo Trails on my Flickr.