Jack took off for Florida yesterday on a float trip of the Everglades, traveling with Dale Linder, Jamie Boyle, and Dave Skok. I almost went too (though in the end I just couldn’t leave the lovely ice and snow that’s mantled our fair city of Boston this year). Before leaving Jack emailed me this photo, asking that I put it up on the blog. Sure thing, buddy.
Alligators and/or crocodiles are a constant in the tropics, along with rough roads, mangrove swamps, and mosquitoes. Over the years I’ve gone on about half a dozen trips with Jack to the tropics and except for one croc that got a little too close in Isla Holbox last year we pretty much ignored them. The Holbox croc presented a dilemma…Jack, Dale and I were wading a salt creek about the size of the Yellow Breeches picking up small tarpon, snook, and seatrout when it went cruising by at rod’s length, maybe 12 feet long. Funny as the oh-so-cool flailing retreat to the shoreline might have been to an observer, the conversation that followed was probably better. I think it went something like:
“I think it’s gone.”
“OK, so go in.”
“I’m just going to have a cigarette first. But you go ahead.”
“Actually I needed to rest my shoulder anyway. I’ll wait for you.”
After a few minutes of casual back and forth someone suggested that anyway it was almost dinner time and if we didn’t get a move on all the good tables at the restaurants would be full by the time we got there. So logic prevailed. The croc, lying motionless under a mangrove canopy on the opposite bank, watched us go.
Katie Lavelle emailed me a list of Florida gator fatalities since the 1970s and what’s surprising about it (other than how short the list is–18 fatalities in 35 years) is that the victims and gators you’d expect to see (big reptiles + very young or old victims) actually make up less than half of the tally. The rest of the victims are adults in the prime of life and the gators involved range in size from 7-12 feet long.
Anyway, for this particular trip I think Jack stands a pretty good chance of coming out alive. Given their relative age, weight, risk-taking potential, and which would look tastiest to a hungry gator I put the gator kibble odds at:
Dave: 9-1
Dale: 12-1
Jack: 14-1
Jamie: 20-1