Okefenokee. It’s a funny name meaning trembling earth. And both of us had heard of the swamp so why not stop there.
We were able to get a site in the wooded Stephen C. Foster State Campground. It’s a state park in the middle of a National Wildlife Refuge. Our national park pass saved us the $5 state fee.
We thought kayaking would be a great way to see the swamp and get in some exercise. It was about $16 for a couple of hours.
We found our kayak, number 9, donned our life jackets and eased out into the swamp. The water was murky but the cypress trees and flowers were beautiful. Paddling a tandem kayak turned out to be easier than we thought.
Then we saw our first alligator up on the bank – eye level to us since we were in a kayak. He was huge and looked almost fake. We wondered if maybe they place him there just to scare us tourists. It worked – we paddled quickly by him.
They told us turning left at the end of inlet would take you to the really big ‘gators. Mrs Ram suggested we go right. However the gators to the right did not seem small.
We saw many of them and some were larger than the first one we saw. We found we could paddle in sync very quickly. Especially when a gator submerged in the water near us. They just slowly sink backwards and you have no idea where they have gone…just under the water…somewhere!
As we paddled into some of the smaller inlets, the gators did get smaller and often it seemed like there none around. Mrs Ram suspected they were just lurking below the surface.
Our 2 hour Okefenokee paddle took us over 3 hours, costing us an additional $5. We were exhausted but had fortunately gone up stream so we had help from the current on the way back.
And the big gator we saw near the start had moved. He was now at the boat ramp.
