Every year the Pan American Orchid Society sponsors a trip in June
Nice and clean, all smiles, Katria is still sleeping.
First victim, she is awake now!! That cold water face.
A presidential crossing.
Dale is getting used to this.
Is something moving?
Is that a gator or a log?
False alarm, just a log.
When we think of danger we always think of alligators. They are
The beauty of this special place is worth all the danger.
Where is the lake??
First orchid we saw was a real jewel in flower. Harrisella porrecta.
We moved it to a more secure location where it could root and
Specimen plant of Epidendrum anceps.
Anachilium cochleatum var triandrum in flower and fruit.
Beautiful plants of Epidendrum nocturnum in fruit.
The very common Epidendrum rigidum.
And the winner of the wet tee shirt contest is..................
This was the last picture I took for a while. The going was treacherous
By the time the camera worked again were all clean.
Our final stop, blue crab nuggets, fried grouper and gator tail.
We thank Maria McMurry for the following pictures.
Resting, high and dry.
A dry hammock west of the lake.
Going gets difficult with the underbrush.
Finally open water and the Cathedral.
Beautiful place.
The group taking in the beauty and
Dale can not believe there really is a lake.
New lake.
to the Fakahatachee swamp. This year we decided to do a second trip.
The trip started like any other and then got interesting.
the least of our worries. An aggressive water moccasin is a real
danger. This snake is also known as a cottonmouth as this snake
demonstrated when I came within two feet of it. The inside of it’s
mouth is as white as cotton. Although it’s bite is not always fatal,
it can make you wish it was. Fortunately, seeing this snake in an
aggravated state is very rare. I can not remember the last time
we saw one in the Fakahatachee.
The plant was hanging at eye level from only one of it’s roots.
continue to grow. The next strong wind that came along would have
caused it to fall into the water.
so I put my camera safely in a ziploc bag. After a few minutes we
came to an area that was so beautiful that several of our explorers
could not believe that someone had not planted the bromeliads and
orchids that we were seeing. There were huge clumps of Gusmania
and orchids on all the trees. The trees had mostly lost their leaves
and the sunlight seemed to highlight the epiphytes. When I decided
to get my camera and take pictures, I found that the ziploc had leaked
and my camera was in a couple of inches of water. I was not able to
record the beauty that was before us. We all made a point of recording
it in our memories. It resembled a natural cathedral in it’s beauty. In the
distance we could see a lake, but it was not East Lake. We had found
another smaller lake that was just as beautiful. This lake is about 150 feet
south west of East Lake. At first we did not see any alligators but as
time went along they began to appear. When we finally decided to
leave there were about twenty alligators and they were getting closer.
Alligators are curious but not really dangerous. However, some of
our fearless explorers were starting to get nervous. They even spotted
one in front of us, which I did not see. When we arrived back at our
cars, I opened the camera and placed it in the sun. After a while it
worked perfectly again.
Wait a minute! Lynn is sitting in the van, who took
the picture?? Come to think of it, did we really see
the cathedral??
Maria’s camera was one of the few that survived.
It would have been a shame not to have pictures
of the Cathedral and at least a glimpse of the lake.
My camera is wet.
serenity of this breathtaking place.
But it is not the right lake!!
This was as close as we were getting
to it. We counted over 20 alligators.
We thought it wise to keep some trees
between us and the gators.