Leslie and David's Wanderings: 23 Feb 2020 Everglades day two

Leslie had wanted to go for an airboat ride in the everglades. But we found out that those are only available at the northern part of the park, an hour and a half drive away, plus very high wind warnings. So we decided to do a boat cruise in the southern portion of the park. After checking out the options online, we settled on a evening cruise on Florida Bay. In the morning we went to Rosita’s for our Sunday Mexican Food fix. It is actually pretty good Mexican food with a good level of heat. In the afternoon we drove back to Everglades NP and stopped at the visitor center to see the park movie we had missed on our previous visit. David found a tee shirt/hat package so he could get his park hat and Leslie could get the tee shirt. We then had to head for the Flamingo area of the park (38 miles from the visitor center) to meet the boat. We arrived just as they started boarding the boat. After dousing ourselves with bug repellent, and getting our wrist bands (tickets), we headed for the upper deck of the two story open deck boat. The wind was still blowing pretty hard and there were still gale warnings up on the east coast. But it was not rough on Florida Bay and the wind kept the bugs at bay. We learned that Flamingo was named after the pink Flamingos that used to be in this area. But the pioneers figured out the flamingos were pretty tasty and the plumage could be sold to hat makers, so the species was hunted to extinction in this area of Florida and they have not returned. We also learned the difference between an alligator and a crocodile. An alligator is fresh water and slightly brackish water creature and a crocodile is a salt water and brackish water creature. Crocodiles are lighter in color and their nose is sharper in profile. We saw two crocodiles as we left the harbor and headed into Florida Bay. They took us first to Murray Key and then over to Frank Key before heading back. We saw lots of birds ( egrets, ibis-of which they have a Super Colony, meaning over a hundred thousand, a roseate spoonbill, great blue herons, little blue herons and tricolored herons) and a wonderful sunset and that’s about the highlight of the cruise. On the way out of the park, we could hear something hitting the Behemoth that sounded like rain, but there was not a cloud in the sky. It was bugs! The Behemoth got covered in squashed bugs on the drive out.