Tuesday October 13th 2020

Today was another nice day in southern Florida. This area got a lot of rain before I got here on Sunday. It is only rained very briefly on Sunday night. For the most part it has been hot and humid, but dry since I got here. The mud around my campsite and the campground portion of the park in general is starting to dry out. I can’t say the same thing about the rest of the area.

Previous visits to this area of Florida have been in the winter dry season. There is always water on both sides of the Tamiami trail as it cuts across the state from Naples to Miami. Today it was much closer to the road surface. In one area to the east of here there were warning signs about water on the road surface. I didn’t find any, but clearly it has been over the road recently. Many of the trails in the parks are closed because of high water.

Today I hiked the nature trail in this park. It is primarily a boardwalk through the mangroves. I was looking forward to the “Observation Platform”. It turned out to be a wide space at the end of the boardwalk with tall mangroves on three sides instead of the two sides on the boardwalk leading to the platform. The whole walk was a let down. I didn’t see any interesting wildlife and the plant life got repetitious fast. The biggest excitement on the trail was avoiding wet ground and navigating around the standing water on the trail in the areas without a boardwalk.

This evening at sunset I returned to the Canoe and Kayak launch area on the Backwater River. The alligator was back. Tonight he was watching a pair of fishermen. Every time they cast the alligator moved closer. Eventually he just went to the bottom and hid. I moved on and took a picture of the sunset over the salt marsh.