There’s a place in Florida where the ground gives way, the trees grow on water, and the line between solid earth and liquid life is forever blurred. I launched my red whitewater kayak into this labyrinth.
Specifically, I was here to paddle two classic trails in Everglades National Park: Hell’s Bay and Nine Mile Pond.
This isn’t my usual whitewater, rock-dodging affair. The water here doesn’t tumble. It creeps. It slides. It smells of methane, muck, and tannin. This is a different kind of paddle excursion than I am used to. It’s a flatwater dreamscape, and sometimes a nightmare, especially at sunset.
The Geology of the Everglades
Florida is not your typical landmass. It’s a carbonate platform, a fossil reef turned peninsula, made mostly of limestone. That limestone is porous. Over millions of years, slightly acidic rainwater carved and dissolved the rock into karst. It resembles a Swiss-cheese landscape of sinkholes, solution channels, and subterranean rivers.
Hell’s Bay and Nine Mile Pond are paddling trails that cut through what’s known as the marl prairies and mangrove transition zones.
These trails weave between patches of sawgrass, buttonwood, and the eerie stillness of red mangroves, whose tangled roots anchor islands called tree islands, or as the locals call them, hammocks.
The water is normally only a few inches or a feet deep but the stories it holds go back thousands of years, long before any GPS coordinates existed. On this trip, I relied heavily on my GPS and preloaded maps. I also relied on the white trail markers that blazed familiar pathways through the watery trails.
Alligator or Crocodile? A Reptilian Identity Crisis
At sunset, something shifted. The water glowed orange from the sun’s reflection, and pairs of eyes emerged just above the surface. Dozens of them were watching and drifting along with me. I turned my headlamp on to get a better view. Alligators and Crocodiles have a layer of reflective material at the back of their eyes, behind the retina. This reflective material, called tapetum lucidum, enhances their night vision but it also shined back to me across hundreds of feet allowing me to see each individual gator in the darkness.
I paddled faster.
You see, the Everglades is the only place on Earth where alligators and crocodiles coexist. I couldn’t tell which I was seeing, but here’s what my research indicates:
| Trait | American Alligator | American Crocodile |
|---|---|---|
| Snout shape | Broad, U-shaped | Narrow, V-shaped |
| Salt tolerance | Low (freshwater only) | High (can thrive in brackish/salty) |
| Color | Dark gray-black | Olive green to tan |
| Behavior | Often docile if left alone | Shy, reclusive, but unpredictable |
| Range | Widespread across Southeast U.S. | Mostly South Florida and coastal zones |
Given I was paddling Nine Mile Pond, an inland freshwater trail, odds are I was being watched by gators.
The park rangers recommend keeping 15′ of distance between you and the alligators. I adhered to that advice. Still, in the fading light, one beast must have felt I was too close. I witnessed its head submerge beneath the surface in a quick, aggressive movement.
Before I could turn my boat and paddle in the opposite direction, its body made contact with my boat. I felt it hit my right rear quarter panel. I didn’t feel in imminent danger of being attacked. Instead, I took it as a warning, a warning which I heeded as I beat a hasty retreat.
The Everglades is ancient and primal. These animals live by hunting and eating other animals. I was not about to tempt fate by overstaying my welcome. Something about those eyes said: “You’re the visitor here, and it’s time for you to leave 9 Mile Pond.”
The Wilderness Within
Hell’s Bay might be “hell to get into and hell to get out of,” as the locals say, but it’s also a place of healing quiet. Engines are not allowed on these waters and I neither heard nor saw any other humans. The quiet was only broken by my paddle blades slicing into the water, birds calling in the canopy, and the occasional splash of something underneath that inevitably disappeared just as I turned my head to look.
Quite contrary to my whitewater paddling trips, this trip wasn’t about the rush of adrenaline after dropping a waterfall. It was about immersion in nature, in science, in the stories these waters whisper if we will only listen.
Final Paddle Stroke
If the roar of mountain rivers is my cathedral, the slowness of Everglades creeping water is my whispering chapel. In the Everglades, it’s not the rapids that test you. Instead, it’s the stillness and the way the water exposes your hopes and your fears. And sometimes, it reflects a pond full of glowing eyes at sunset.
Stay wild. Stay curious.
Clyde Outsideeeeee!
Clyde Outside Florida Everglades Quiz
How much did you learn about the Florida Everglades? Take the Clyde Outside Everglades Quiz to test your knowledge.
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