Day the Second, Part the Third in the Okefenokee Adventure

I have to find some fun in these titles.  Telling the story of the trip through the swamp is fun, but the titles were getting boring.

This tree has some growing to do, but I think it is quite interesting as it is right now.  The branches stick out at such odd angles it makes for an intriguing photograph.

This was an anhinga (I had to search for the bird to make sure I had the name correct).  Rob and I saw it fly across a lake, so we stopped paddling and let the canoe drift closer to the bird so that I could take more pictures.

This picture really shows the bird's long neck as it stretches it out.

It is times like this I wish I could zoom in just a bit closer, ;-).  But I really can't complain as a 12x zoom is normally sufficient. Only infrequently do I find myself wishing for a telephoto lens.  I think that I took at least 8-10 pictures of this bird before we finally continued paddling.

No, this wasn't the shelter for the night, just a day use shelter.

Here is the shelter in question.  We didn't stop to explore this shelter, partly because there was no outhouse.  I'm pretty sure that it was the Dinner Pond shelter that was burned out (yet still marked on maps that were handed out) whereas this was the Big Water Shelter.  By this point we were within the area where motorboats were permitted for day use, so I can see how a shelter like this would be nice for day use people.  Check out my Okefenokee geography post to see the location of these shelters on the map.

I'm not sure why the warning is necessary, I certainly wouldn't want to stay on a platform in the middle of the swamp without restroom facilities...

As I mentioned above we were within the area where motorboats were allowed.  I don't really begrudge them their use of the swamp, but in someways it was annoying to have them putter by.  The polite boaters slowed down until they were well past us while the rude ones just kept going, regardless of the wake that they generated.  It was fun to hit the wake like an ocean wave--but that is beside the point.

We started to see "Home" signs during this day.  I suspect that they were placed for the benefit of motorboat users and day trip canoe paddlers so that they wouldn't accidentally head deeper into the swamp.

Though we had certainly been enjoying the day this sign was a welcome sign.  We knew that our shelter for the night was Big Water Shelter, so we knew it couldn't be too far away once we'd reached Big Water Lake.

This sign marked the turnoff to our platform, but rather poorly we all thought.  I'm not sure if there is text on the portion of the sign which is underwater...  It doesn't clearly say that the Big Water Shelter is to the left.  I had seen on the map earlier that the shelter was partway along the trail to Floyd's Island, so I assumed this was our turnoff without seeing an actual sign.

This was the sign you saw when you faced the sign in the last picture and faced left.  We turned off the lake and into a narrower path between the trees that I wish I had photographed.  I think that you'll see some pictures when I post photographs from the next morning.

We reached the shelter to find that Buddy and Kay and Josh had been there for nearly and hour and a half.  the others came in a ways behind us--but I'm not sure exactly how long.  We hadn't pushed hard at all, and Buddy and Kay hadn't exerted themselves, they just hadn't felt the need to rest and had kept going most of the day.  It was nice to spend some of the afternoon on the platform.  I got to photograph several small creatures.

I especially like the contrast of the dark burned bark and the bright green of the needles.  There were several burned trees surrounding the platform.  I believe that it had burned during the big 2007 fire and had to be reconstructed, much like the Maul Hammock platform where we stayed our first night in the swamp.  Unlike Maul Hammock this platform was closely surrounded by trees.  It was beautiful and did help block the late afternoon sun, but made for narrow views of the clear night sky.

This is the first of several Anole that I was able to photograph.  I think there were at least a half-dozen of them surrounding the platform that afternoon.

After photographing the anole, Josh called me over when he spotted this bug.  His camera had stopped working very early in the trip, so he was anxious for others to take good pictures.  I'm in the middle of a project of combining everyone's pictures together and burning them to DVD.

Another anole.  I have pictures of this guy with his head pointed up and then this one of him looking towards the right.  Cycling back and forth between the two pictures is amusing.

Anole the third.  I like the layout of this picture with the green grasses in the unclear background and the yellow flowers.

Unfortunately this was the only frog that I saw on the trip.  We did hear many different frogs, though I forget the names of some of them I can't forget the pig frog.  Their call was easy to audibly identify once Perry had pointed them out.

I don't know why I took this picture, but it feels like I'm looking out of a window (the out of focus foreground tree) into the swamp.  I don't know if I intended this, but I enjoy the result.

This is my favourite anole picture.

I don't know why, but I didn't get very many pictures of this evening.  We did plenty, cooking dinner, playing cards, talking.  I just forgot to photographically document the evening.  It isn't until you forget to do something that you realize that you've forgotten it.  Of course since I didn't bring a spare memory card and I ended up filling up what I had with pictures and videos it isn't as though I had space to spare in retrospect...  I'm sure once I look through the other's pictures I'll find more of this evening so that I won't have to simply rely on memories to recall what happened.

I think Mark simply posed with a goofy expression once he saw me about to take a picture.  Once he had done that I asked Denise and Josh if they would pose, resulting in the next shot.

I think for Mark the progression of his "swamp head" qualifies as a goofy expression, ;-).

Sadly this was the last picture of the evening.  My next post will start out with the next morning, the day we knew would be our last day in the swamp...

~Matt