Picknicking with gators--an hour on the air with Beth Surdut

Not long before the onset of another hell-on-earth hurricane season, I was interviewed by Canadian radio host Lynn Thompson for her show Living On Purpose. We started with a tour of my art and conversation about the Dream Vessels Project at my classic Florida 1920s wooden bungalow, then the plan was to go paddling with the alligators. I took her to the wild and scenic Myakka river (that description is a state designation), but on that windy day, which really would have been a challenge for a novice paddler, the actuality of getting in the canoe turned out to be beyond her comfort zone. So I took her around on foot to favorite spots to see birds and reptiles, snouts and tails.

As I approached the final put-in by car, giving her the fish-or-cut-bait speech in case she just might want to splash the boat in an hour before sunset, we saw a gator on land next to a picnic table being used as a perch by five vultures, while a few stood around on the ground.

Lynn asked me if the gator was alive. When I said yes, she started to get out of the car asking, "This is safe, isn't it?" and I responded, "You don't see me getting out, do you?"

If you've read my blog (scroll down for Bloodsuckered, Darwin Should See This, Gator Girl and the Prehistorics) you know I'm more comfortable surrounded by 14 alligators when I'm in a boat and they're in the water, so I let her go first. Do listen to the adventure, a luxurious and engaging hour of radio.

Raptor Rapture

Big gator. Bigger than my boat, and definitely faster. Like a nightmare troll stretching across the narrow entrance of the estuary, he watches as I edge past in a rented tub-toy masquerading as a kayak. God he has a lot of teeth.

Almost three years I've been paddling, skimming, slogging, punting my way along the Myakka- the wild and scenic place that never disappoints and keeps me on the right side of sanity.

Almost sunset--two wood storks pose in tandem like a lyre of grace amidst four deer grazing in a lush green patch. An ungainly gallinule lofts from one shore to the other, reflected in the dark mirror of water before landing heavily in a bank of grass so dry it crackles.

I paddle up to where I think the bird might be, and find myself looking at three bulging pairs of eyes in gator babies so cute you might almost forget that Big Momma Gator might be close by...but truth is, I have an arrangement with these creatures of wing and hoof, carapace and prehistoric hide--they own the joint and as long as I behave myself, I get to experience the wonder of natural Florida.

I spent three nights wandering around Myakka park looking for owls. Didn't see a one in the wild, or on the birdwalk, or up in the moonlit canopy, or down by the gully, though the Owl Prowl instructor brought four raptors for a teaching purposes. "Might sound like a dove," the ranger said.

Dusk in my backyard in the city-- For the second night in a row I hear"Hoooo-hooo. Hooo-hooo-hooo." I stand under the live oaks draped with thick Spanish moss, what we call Pele's Hair in Hawaii, and I carefully mimic the call. There it is, a great winged creature flying across the twilight, a barred owl. Must've heard me asking for him.

For more art and the adventures of Gator Girl, see The Subtlety of Gators posted Oct 2007.

Gator Girl and the Prehistorics

"Don't be scared," said the guide as the alligator lunged towards my kayak, the huge prehistoric head right next to my hip. "I'm not scared," I said quietly, "I'm petrified," I whispered as the gator swam past us, gliding parallel to my little tub toy of a boat. The waters of the Myakka river, rightly designated wild and scenic, are a feast for gators and birds--I just didn't want to be the main course.
"Whew," said the guide, "I'm sure glad he didn't get scared and try to climb over our boats."
The next day at an orchid sale, I heard someone loudly calling, "Hey Gator Girl!" It was one of my newly met paddling buddies. My behavior on the river--shock masquerading as aplomb--earned me a new moniker.
That was my first time on the river. I came back to the studio to paint this piece Myakka: the subtlety of Gators. Most of the time, in the dark reflective waters, you can't see who's swimming under or beside you. Eyes head and nose dot the surface and often sink like submarines as we approach.
Myakka, unlike other aspects of Florida, never disappoints, always enchants. Herons abound--Great Blues, Whites, Tri-colored (my favorite), Green and more; heavy bodied woodstorks whose wings whoosh loudly as they loft, goofy and gorgeous roseate spoonbills, bold ospreys, and so many more birds.
I no longer go with a guide, most often with one boon paddling companion in a canoe--I admit that I like the higher sides, especially when a gator decides we're too close and lunges up out of the water, mouth agape. A rare occurrence, especially if its not mating season when the big boys bellow "Stella" in their own version of Streetcar Named Desire.
There have been days where I've seen the spectrum of life-- big eyed baby gators with striped tails and once, a 12 foot gator corpse being feasted upon by vultures who usually amuse with their hopping, dum-de-dump, de-dum-de dum gait.
Recently I counted 14 gator heads in the water around me, and stopped counting when I got to 48 vultures in the trees and on shore with no carrion in sight or scent. I just kept moving, in case they mistook me for dessert.
This piece is sold, and in a private collection of someone who lives in the northeast and has never been on the river.
See more from this Enigmatic Paradise series at http://www.bethsurdut.com/