{"id":259700,"date":"2024-03-12T17:52:41","date_gmt":"2024-03-12T22:52:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=259700"},"modified":"2024-03-12T18:01:43","modified_gmt":"2024-03-12T23:01:43","slug":"made-some-new-friends-on-a-paddle-down-a-florida-creek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2024\/03\/12\/made-some-new-friends-on-a-paddle-down-a-florida-creek\/","title":{"rendered":"Made some new friends on a paddle down a Florida creek"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We drove down to spend March in Florida, near Venice — just south of Sarasota, on the Gulf side — so of course I brought my kayak, and when I had a free afternoon I took it down to Curry Creek, which runs behind the mobile home park where we are staying, and empties into the bay and from there into the gulf. It was a beautiful day for a paddle, so I took it slow and paddled about three or four kilometres — saw a few ibises, a couple of herons, some miscellaneous birds of various kinds, and lots of moss hanging from the trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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While I was paddling, I saw a man sitting on a bench on the bank of the creek and he was looking at something across the creek. “There he is,” he said, pointing at an alligator sunning himself on a sand bar — about eight or nine feet long probably. As I paddled by he submerged, so I only got a shot of his head poking up above the water. Further along I saw another one, but he was completely obscured except for his nose, and seemed to want to have nothing to do with me, which was fine with me \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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