Getting Schooled Down at the Swamp
Getting Schooled Down at the Swamp
An Okefenokee weekend of mixing science, adventure, and starry skies.
Only after visiting the Okefenokee Swamp did I truly understand how the place—all 430,000 acres of it—really only has two roads. Our choices: drive in a ways from the east, or drive in a ways from the west. That’s it. The landscape, we soon learned, is not so much for humans. Pavement will only take you so far. To see this wetlands ecosystem, we found we needed to get on, or at least very near, that famous blackwater.
After talking about a visit to the Okefenokee for many years, Fred and I finally did enough planning to make a foray into this legendary, massive wildlife refuge. We wanted to learn more about plans for mining near the swamp, contribute scientific data to the Okefenokee iNaturalist page, perhaps see a few gators, and gaze at the Milky Way in our state’s only International Dark Sky Preserve.
And, check, check, check, and check, we got all that and more.
Visit the Okefenokee toward the end of August in the low season, like we did, and you’ll find a scene that is alive and thriving under a blazing daytime sun, yet inky dark and hushed at night under a sky jammed with stars, a few shooting.
Your clothes will be soaked with sweat during even the mildest activity, but you won’t encounter many mosquitos. The dark tinge of the Okefenokee’s water comes from natural tannins found in trees. Like a tea bag steeping in hot water, tannins seep from the tree roots and stains the water which becomes not only dark, but also acidic. Mosquito larvae don’t thrive in acidic, tannic water.
A boat guide had this to say about the matter: “People think ugh, a swamp? All that standing water—it will be filled with mosquitos. But that’s not so. This water has a current, and mosquitos are not that bad here at any time of the year.”
And the Gator says: “No Billy’s Island for you.”
In a canoe on the Orange Trail near Billy’s Island. Thursday evening. After we talked with the park ranger, I had an aha moment. “Oh, I see—-all river trails everywhere.” I traced my finger over the shiny map, mumbling trail facts, names and distances, trying to learn. . . so orange goes east to west, but red north to south oh wow 12 miles long, but I see that pink goes north to south and is fairly short, so. . .
Just like most excursions to someplace new, the learning really begins once you set foot in the place and see the layout for yourself. With that thought in mind, I realized then that our Okefenokee education really began that afternoon standing in front of a patient and helpful park ranger.
“So, to really see things we need to get in a boat,” I said to her. She nodded and within minutes we had rented a canoe and were walking past “don’t feed the alligator” signs out to get our canoe. We planned to paddle two miles upstream, dock at Billy’s Island and walk around a bit to see the island, then paddle back to the boathouse. As we left I asked her do we need to worry about the alligators but she just shook her head and kept looking at her computer screen. Eager to get out on the water, we didn’t follow up with more questions, we just grabbed our paddles and lifejackets and headed out.
The paddle trip (2 miles out to the island, 2 miles back) was great. We marveled at the blackwater, the flotillas of lily pads, and the bald cypress trees everywhere. By the time I’d reached my 3rd mile, my clothes were drenched and my untrained rowing muscles—-specifically an area between my shoulder and neck—felt tightly locked in a burning vise grip—but the pain vanished when we got back to the boathouse, so, basically, I was fine. In fact, Fred and I were both more than fine because of the excitement of. . . a great big alligator!
Take a look at this 39-second video to see what happened. If you want the text-only version, here it is: a huge alligator was sprawled on the dock at Billy’s Island, and we were afraid to get out of our boat.
At first, we couldn’t believe what we were seeing. “Is that an inflatable? Inflated alligator?” Fred asked.
“Maybe, but who would play that joke?”
(Alternate link to the video is here.)
My video stopped abruptly, because I dropped the phone to grab my paddle to get away from the dock, all while trembling with excitement and the thrill of seeing this apex predator up close and personal. Were we sad we couldn’t get out to see the island? Not really. Later we told the ranger about him and she said, “That big old gator rests there in the sun at the end of the day all the time. If you had gotten out onto the dock, he wouldn’t have bothered you. Alligators are afraid of us, uninterested in humans. He’d have slipped away into the water.”
Maybe so, maybe so. But we didn’t take a chance.
As Promised: Dark Sky Splendor
In a parking lot near Stephen C. Foster park HQ. Thursday night. We stayed in a cabin at Foster Park and after dark headed out to see the stars, which were fantastic although the Milky Way seemed skinnier than I remember as a kid. Wandering around in the dark, we bumped into (not literally) an amateur astronomer who was also out to admire the dark skies.
He had a telescope that was massive, the size of a small keg of beer, the pony size, and it was perched on a sturdy tripod. Telescope Man was wearing a red-light headband and holding a hefty telescope remote in one hand and a souped-up laser pointer in the other. He was happy to share some of what he knew.
Fred and I? We’re more the lay-on-your-back-and-look-up kind of stargazers, but we enjoyed hanging out with an expert. Hearing Telescope Man’s running commentary, and seeing what he was pointing too—here’s the tail of Sagittarius, see the whitish ‘steam’ from the teapot that starts the Milky Way, over there’s the W of stars in Cassopia, and of course there’s the Big Dipper—was both educational and a lot of fun. (Side note: laser pointers have really gotten better. I couldn’t believe how far his light seemed to extend into the sky. It made seeing the constellations so much easier.)
Peeking into the scope, we saw Saturn and its rings, as well as the shadowy circle of light from the Andromeda Galaxy, the galaxy closest to ours. Telescope Man told us he was hoping to see a nova star, and launched into an explanation of Corona Borealis, while tracing his laser along the U-shaped constellation. Later at home, I learned more about this nova star, which we did not see, by reading this: A rare stellar explosion will soon reveal a ‘new’ star.
By the time we said goodbye to our astronomy teacher, we had a new appreciation of the mysteries of the heavens.
Community Science
I used a dark sky meter to take readings of the sky. That night, and on the next two nights of our trip, I got readings of 21.79, 20.78, and 21.14. As background: A Sky Quality Meter (SQM) reading of 20 or 21 indicates a dark sky where stargazing is at its best and the stars of the Milky Way are clearly visible. A reading of 16 or 17 indicates a light sky that is impacted by either artificial light or bright Moon light.
I contributed 51 sets of images to the Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge iNaturalist page. See everything I added here.
This newsletter mostly covered our first day, from 4 p.m. to midnight. Coming in the next day or two: a photo essay showing highlights of what else happened down at the swamp.
I was there in April and the stars were incredible—can’t stop thinking about them. Loved the video footage of your canoe ride and unexpected guest!
So interesting! I’ve always wanted to go! That gator was HUGE! ( Loved the narrated video clip with Fred)!