Post by liveoak on Oct 5, 2022 10:25:07 GMT -5
We don't have any glamorous beautiful mountains , and no rocks to speak of, but we do have some vast swamps.
We took a day to explore one of them, an area called the "Dead Lakes" .
Geologically, this area was formed when the Apalachicola River cut off the Chipola River during some long ago giant hurricane -
to paraphrase Gordon Lightfoot, "Long before the white man, and long before the wheel"
Anyway, it's a huge area of cypress mazes and back waters that is very lightly traveled, as it's really easy to get lost in there.
We stayed mostly in the main channel, that runs mostly along the west side, but even then it's tricky to follow sometimes.
It's the closest we have here to a real wilderness, and it was a beautiful blue sky day, and so we went exploring.
We took a day to explore one of them, an area called the "Dead Lakes" .
Geologically, this area was formed when the Apalachicola River cut off the Chipola River during some long ago giant hurricane -
to paraphrase Gordon Lightfoot, "Long before the white man, and long before the wheel"
Anyway, it's a huge area of cypress mazes and back waters that is very lightly traveled, as it's really easy to get lost in there.
We stayed mostly in the main channel, that runs mostly along the west side, but even then it's tricky to follow sometimes.
It's the closest we have here to a real wilderness, and it was a beautiful blue sky day, and so we went exploring.
I tried to take some decent photos, but not always easy from a moving skiff, even though we were going pretty slow.
Some of the open areas are quite large & you'd think you were just cruising down some lake,
and then the channel closes up and you have to pick your way through dead ends, and side channels.
One of the areas of "Ghost Forests". Where they logged cypresses many years ago, and left the stumps, which will probably remain for the next 100 years or more.
The giant spooky looking tree, in the center of the photo, is a Water Tupelo.
They form a huge trunk from which many smaller trunks grow.
Although it's a very strange looking tree, in the spring it has flowers that the local bees use to make the famous "Tupelo Honey".
The honey is quite an industry around here, and I understand that Tupelo trees have been planted just for that purpose,
although I doubt the planted ones are anywhere near this big.
One of the side channels. There are miles of these and they all kind of look the same.
I appreciated Tom's thinking, he stuck to the right on the way out & the left on the way back.
An area of larger cypresses & you can see another Tupelo back in there.
The whole area has a really primeval look to it.
And in case you didn't know, Cypress wood is very rot resistant, and one of the nice things here is you can find lots of interesting driftwood pieces.
Which we mostly filled the skiff with , on the way back.
Actually didn't see any alligators, just a couple of turtles.
I think if we had poked around further in the backwaters we would have seen more creatures like this, maybe next time.
BUT we did see one denizen of the swamp, a Florida Wolf Spider. White Banded Fishing Spider.
Not a really big one, only about 3" across, we've seen them much larger
You see these guys a lot on the cypress stumps.
An old logging barge left after the valuable cypress was logged out.
Just like the stumps, this too will probably be here 100 years from now.
Our 14' exploration vehicle, pictured before we loaded up the drift wood.
That's the show & tell for today,
Thanks for looking,
Patty