epic okefenokee adventure, part II

We took our snack break before paddling off into Chesser prairie.  After not very long, Marius and I stopped to take pictures of the water lilies.  And sometime around then I had the brilliant idea to use our silly little life vests (kid sized) as seat cushions.  WOW.  That helped a lot!  Those solid plastic seats are NOT made for comfort!

water lily

note the piles of brown on the right of this picture - those are peat blow-ups

 When we were at least 4 miles into the swamp, we encountered our first "peat blow-up" - pieces of peat dislodged from the bottom of the swamp.  It was significantly harder to paddle through and around the mess created, but we made it.  Little did we know that was just the first - we had to struggle through five or six, some worse than others.  Dan started calling it "swamp doo-doo," a name that stuck for the rest of the trip.  We saw white wading birds with curved beaks - the White Ibis, although I ended up not getting any pictures of them.  We also saw Great Egrets, both wading and sitting on the tops of trees.

great egret atop a tree

try paddling through swamp doo-doo sometime...  it builds character!

 After one of the worst sections of swamp doo-doo, thick and around a curve, Marius and I waited for Dan when we hadn't spotted him behind us for a while.  It started to rain, so we turned back to find him, thinking it would not be pleasant to be stuck in the peat, alone, in the rain.  When we finally found him, he decided to put on his rain poncho.  He didn't last long with it on - it was way too warm to do any kind of exercise under a sheet of plastic.

dan in the rain

At the next area of swamp doo-doo, we used my 15' rope to tie Dan's canoe to ours so we could tow him through if it got too tough.  Sometime between 2:30 and 3 pm, we paddled in to Monkey Lake.  We tied our canoes up to the walkway by the composting toilet and unloaded all our gear.

monkey lake from google maps showing our home for the night

success!  we paddled 7.5 miles!

composting toilet outhouse with canoes pulled up next to the walkway

We all got into the larger canoe to check out Buzzard's Roost Lake - it was one half mile past Monkey Lake and had been recommended as a good place to watch the sunset.  We spotted our second alligator on the way there, on the side of the little waterway, and our third once we got out into the lake - it quickly submerged.  Marius attempted to fish for a little while although he had been warned that there weren't many fish for the catching.  He decided a canoe, especially with two other people, was not an ideal fishing setup.

this photo at buzzard's roost lake shows i didn't use enough sunscreen!

We headed back to our camp since it was much to early for sunset and set up the tents to let them dry from the night before.  We made our second fancy dinner- a pared down version of this spicy tuna couscous recipe.  YUM!  I had brought a small container with diced red bell pepper, cucumber (homegrown!), and green onion, all soaked in a little bit of vinegar, since I wasn't about to bring the lemon juice listed in the recipe.  It added just the right touch of sour flavor.

unstaked tents, draped rainflies, plans for calm weather

After cleaning up our dishes, we went back out to Buzzard's Roost to watch the sun set.  It was quite beautiful, and size of the lake allowed us to get back from the trees to get a better view.

sunset at buzzard's roost lake

reflections on the way back to camp

We headed back and enjoyed a cup of tea, sitting around the picnic table.  We heard many strange sounds, including a couple of loud, deep growls.  I have just confirmed that alligators do indeed growl.  I nervously laid on my back to look at the stars, and was soon joined by both of the guys.  The Milky Way was visible, although our limited viewing area didn't present any recognizable constellations.  We did see a few shooting stars.  I tried to get a photo of the stars, but I guess our platform wasn't quite stable enough to get a non-blurry photo, at least not with a 12 minute exposure like this one:

at least you can see the cloudiness of the milky way and a little bit of star trails...

My last attempt at a long exposure photo, I looked up walked out to close the shutter and pick up the camera.  "Pointless," I said, "There are clouds covering most of the stars!"
After I packed my camera back in its case, put away my mini-tripod, and settled in for the night, logic kicked in...  we had been seeing lightning flashes in the distance for hours and hearing thunder, AND clouds had just covered over our sparkling clear view of the stars.  It just might rain!  I convinced Marius (since Dan wasn't moving) to help me flip the canoes over so we wouldn't have canoes full of water in the morning.  A few raindrops fell as we completed this task.  We moved the hanging spot for our food bags from the edge of the shelter to a spot more under the roof.  We tossed anything we saw that might need to stay dry into the tents, then the thunderstorm really hit.  Within a couple of minutes, we were being bombarded with heavy, horizontal rain.  Marius and I scrambled to secure the rainfly of the larger tent to anything and everything in sight.  I ended up tying the lines to the posts of the shelter and the bench of the picnic table, while he tied his side to his smaller tent, which fortunately had needed to be anchored earlier in order to be properly set up.  I was completely soaked when I crawled back into the tent, and incredibly thankful I had thought to bring a full-size towel.  Dan stayed comfy and dry...

So ends part II.  Part III to follow soon.