Courage, My Daughter!

An excerpt from my March 11, 2015 Okefenokee nature journal:

Wednesday, 9:45 AM – In exploring the swamps of Georgia and Florida in the 1700’s the naturalist William Bartram stated, “the alligators were in such incredible numbers, and so close together from shore to shore, that it would have been easy to have walked across on their heads, had the animals been harmless.” Although they may not be as numerous as in Bartram’s day, there were still plenty of gators to see on our short guided boat boat ride across Billy’s Lake. ​Biologists estimate about 12,000 alligators reside throughout the entire Okefenokee.

​At one point, our guide pulled the boat especially close to one large gator and encouraged my daughter to the front to get a closer photo.  While she was perched on the bow of the boat, the guide kept the boat slowly moving forward until the gator gave a huge splash while simultaneously turning and submerging. Amanda was just as quickly back in her seat at the rear of the boat! When she got her courage back up, she was able to get near the front of the boat again and got a humorous shot of a gator “hiding” under a lily pad.

iNaturalist observation: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/53967002