December 3, 2010 "Cold Weather and Airboats!"

Although we had cold weather this morning, the day was still beautiful, with blue skies and excellent wildlife. In this weather the birds seem to come out more and on these days, gators want the heat and tend to lay out to absorb the rays of the sun more.

One big ole boy crawled right up to the boat and one of the gentlemen on the boat dropped his camera right down in the water in front of the critter. Of course, Captain Gary was right their to retrieve it and went right down in front of the monster to collect it.

One of these days Captain Gary's grandkids will have a story to tell their little friends that starts out something like "Oh yeah, my granddaddy got ate by a big ole gator while he was trying to retrieve a camera from the water that some guy dropped.........".

Buster, our 3 and a half foot farm raised gator was so lethargic from the cold he simply "chilled" on us and pretty much stayed asleep while we got pictures of everyone holding him. These creatures can slow their metabolism down to 2 heart beats per minute to conserve energy on cold days. They cannot eat or digest their food so they must conserve. I think this is how we found Buster today. Or, he was just LAZY!

Oh well, what can I say, that's just the way it is in the swamps!

I sure hope you all had a great day and enjoyed your adventure. Don't forget to look us up for other adventures in the future! Just check out our links on the right side of this blog for Everglades Adventures or Good Time Charters!

Gator D is outta here -- gonna enjoy the rest of my day too!