Thursday 14th May

Early this morning, we phoned up the charter boat service (who do the snorkel and glass-bottom boat trips) as we'd been asked. Sadly, the wind out on the Atlantic is a little too high to make the trip possible. The TV was saying wind speeds were 15-20mph. So instead, we took off to the Everglades to visit one of the airboat ride places.

We decided to choose Gator Park because it was the closest of the 'true' Everglades places.

The trip down there was just over the hour. During the drive we got the first rain of the holiday, a sharp rain shower which lasted about five minutes.

Finally, we reached Gator Park and first up was the air boat ride.

Our guide was an older guy who, oddly, wasn't wearing shoes. I thought it might be because it was warm again today, but I did find out why he was barefoot later when he jumped out of the air boat in the middle of the Everglades to wade around in the water. First off though, he took us at a slow speed through a waterway where he pointed out birds and plants of interest. The water was teeming with fish as well.

Eventually, the alligators started to turn up. We initially saw a couple. One was quite shy but the other (maybe 4ft in length) swam right up to my side of the boat and sat there, waiting for our guide to throw him some treats (which he did, causing our reptile friend to swish around right in front of me - gulp!)

We were then sent on a speedy ride out to the end of the Sawgrass area. We were told that the water level is quite low at the moment, so the area outside our current position was mostly mud - something the air boat cannot travel over. It was here the guide jumped out into the 6 inches of water to show the depth of the water in the outer laying areas. Yes, there are alligators in the area (we saw one a few minutes later) so the guide told us that he always keeps close to the boat.

We then returned to the entrance - spying a couple more alligators along the way.

After the trip, we were moved on to the Alligator exhibit. Basically, this guy talked us though how to go about wrestling a 5 feet alligator that he had in his pen. He also showed us a small, few week old alligator up close.

With this little guy in hand, the guide walked up to Linda and waved in near her so the foot lightly brushed her. She, of course, cringed and looked away. The guy moved on and then, from behind, gently touched her back with his hand. Linda again shrieked, convinced the baby alligator was having a second go at her! Oh, how we laughed (except Linda, of course).

Eventually, we got the chance to handle a larger Alligator. This one was about 3 or 4 feet long. Linda wasn't keen (surprise, surprise) but I stepped up to the plate!

Just glad they kept the mouth band on!

From Gator park, we moved on to Sawgrass Mills. This is one of the largest outlet malls in the world. Boy it felt like it too! We perhaps covered a third of it, but we were in there for a good six hours! Bought a couple of bits - indeed I think I bought more than Linda, which is a little unnerving as I'm sure she'll be looking to even the score soon !