St. Johns River

Today Pam and I enjoyed our first air boat ride. We experienced a 70 minute ride on the St. Johns River. It was a perfect day for cruising the river with temperatures just above 80 degrees and partly sunny skies.  The air boats are powered by 8.1L souped-up Vortec engines, the same engine powering our pickup. 

Strangely there are cattle in the middle of the river.  Some appear to be on land (islands?) and others appear to be standing on water and others are 3 feet deep with vegetation all around them.  

The air boat operator/guide made sure we got to see several alligators up close.  The one pictured below was the biggest we saw at approximately 13' length.

We also saw a couple of Rosy (Roseate) Spoonbills.  These are beautiful, pink-colored water birds, the only pink birds native to Florida.

On the west side of the St Johns River we went into the Tosohatchee Wildlife Management Area full of lovely Cypress trees standing in the water. It was very quiet and peaceful in this area.

Upon conclusion of the tour, guests are invited to hold this 3-year old alligator!

 The gift shop also had a pot-bellied pig snorting and grunting on the floor.  I think it just wanted all the tourists to leave him alone so he could sleep!