About 60 miles northeast of the Ichetucknee Springs is the Okefenokee Swamp. The swamp is protected within the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, a 402,000 acre tract of land in the southeast corner of Georgia. To give you an idea as to the remoteness of this area, the 80 acre Stephen C. Foster State Park, where we camped, is 17 miles inside the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge western boundary. To get to Fargo, the nearest town, you must go outside the Refuge then drive a mile or so to “town”. Fargo’s “town” consists of a cafe, convenience store/gas station and a post office. The closest full-service grocery store is a 46 mile drive south to Lake City, Florida, which we drove through on our way to the Swamp. Fortunately we had enough food to last us through our one week stay and only needed to pick up enough OJ to last us.
The evening we arrived, Friday, April 23rd, we decided to participate in the sunset pontoon boat ride. At 7:30 p.m. we hopped aboard with the family acting as our Camp Host, and a young ranger of the fairer sex, and putted out the narrow canal, cramped by trees and water plants concealing young alligators, to the open water. The Okefenokee Swamp contains the headwaters of the Suwannee River. With the song, Way Down Upon the Suwannee River, playing in our heads, we drank in the beauty around us. The banks were thick with young and mature trees their branches encased with freshly grown leaves creating a solid wall of green, broken only by the gray bark of an errant, ancient cypress standing slightly offshore. As the evening darkened, the surprisingly loud croak of tree frogs melded with the crickets’ chirps and whoosh of turkey buzzard’s wings as they vied for select spots on the dead tree branches high overhead. Chris took her camera along and captured abstract images of the pink clouds and black silhouetted tree reflections in the boat’s wake.
Reflections of the pink clouds and black shadows of trees in the bow wake of the boat.
Silhouette of a cypress tree against the setting sun.
Once dark settled in the ranger brought out a powerful spotlight and, in its beam we beheld the full number of winged nighttime pests that could have affected our comfort had we not been moving. Orion and the Big Dipper loomed above as we learned why the area was dubbed by the Indians, The Land of the Trembling Earth. Our guide pulled the boat into a grassy area, walked forward, picked up a paddle and stabbed into the grass – which moved – up and down. She explained that much of the earth in the swamp actually consists of peat. It breaks free from below the water and rises to the surface creating a perfect platform for seeds to germinate. The first to take hold are grasses whose roots spread through the peat creating a denser mat where tree seeds sprout, their roots then descend through the water to the bottom where they anchor the floating grassy bed. This is the Trembling Earth because if you attempt to walk on it, it moves underfoot. Eventually the grasses and other plants accumulate enough debris to become a small island which may or may not attach itself to the bank.
Chris took this photo of the trees along the bank as they were briefly lit by the spotlight.
The distortion is caused by a longer shutter speed due to the low light conditions.
Jay, being the lover of reptiles that he is, was so excited since he was certain the Okefenokee Swamp had to be crawling with the snakes and lizards he so adores. Throughout our stay we hiked three trails; two on solid ground and one along a raised deck through a mucky, standing water area. A group of women we passed told him of two Cottonmouth Snakes they had sighted further along beside the deck. Unfortunately they were gone when we arrived. He had to be consoled with the one, small, Black Racer Snake we did see and a Green Anole lizard that day. We also spent three days on the water and he felt certain he would spot snakes at some point while we were deep in the swamp on the narrow, inky streams: But, it was not to be. His only consolation was a snake presentation the park hosted one evening. He got to handle a Gray Rat Snake, Yellow Rat Snake and an Eastern King Snake; all non-venomous.
A happy Jay holding a Yellow Rat Snake.
Although we love to canoe and experience the silence and splendor of these natural areas the craft is too tipsy for Chris to comfortably take her good camera gear along and she makes do with the pocket-sized, point-and-shoot just to record the experience. The scenes of cypress and water at Okefenokee warranted renting a flat-bottom boat with outboard motor to provide a sturdy platform for the tripod. There were still problems with keeping the boat stationary long enough to capture sharp images during a long exposure, but at least we got to spend several days outdoors enjoying the perfect spring weather - with one exception.
We started out late in the day to catch the low, afternoon slant of the sun’s rays and were surprised to find a cloudy sky above which was contrary to the day's forecast of mostly sunny. Undaunted, we motored up the creek to photograph taking advantage of the soft light. The afternoon progressed and there was a sudden chill to an increasing wind. We motored a little further and encountered a sprinkle. Chris pulled out the two, large, garbage bags she always carries in her camera bag and quickly covered it and the camera. The sprinkle turned into a healthy shower, made all the more intense by the increased speed of our boat as we high-tailed it toward a shelter we knew was about a mile ahead. The shelter afforded a space to dry off ourselves and the gear, which Chris then secured inside the plastic bags. A break in the rain turned out to be a sucker hole as we boarded the boat and headed for home, only to be caught in another downpour. Wishing we had extra garbage bags for ourselves, or had been smart enough to bring our rain jackets, we sped home. With teeth chattering and soaked to the skin, we secured the boat and hustled back to the trailer for a couple of hot showers.
A view as we journeyed through the swamp.
Reflection of a large cypress tree base in still water.
Our fear of becoming pin cushions for the gazillion resident mosquitoes was unfounded. Contrary to our expectations, the days were crystal clear, dry, warm and sunny and perhaps not the kind of clime that warrants their emergence. It wasn’t until our last night there that the humidity settled in and we had to swat a few before falling asleep to the surrounding silence.
A drawback to such remote locations is the lack of compatibility with today’s technologies. We rely on cell phones exclusively for our verbal communication and a wireless router, that uses a cell signal, for our internet. During our stay at Ichetucknee Springs Chris caught up on all of her blog entries but didn’t have time to upload them. Her plan to upload them at Okefenokee was dashed when she realized even Jay’s cell phone, which seems to always have at least two bars of signal, only had one bar. The time it took to open a single web page allowed one to brush their teeth, or make the bed, or get a beverage. To say that posting text and photos with the internet speed of a snail was frustrating is an understatement. Our next stop was a weekend in Tallahassee to visit Jay’s daughter and we were confident that the signal would be adequate for the task at hand.
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