The Blue Hole

I had a suspicion the recent cool weather might have pushed the most famous resident of the Blue Hole to shallower warmer waters. I  guess I got that right.

With clear blue winter skies and bright sunshine under a strong cool northeast wind, the blue hole was looking quite appealing. 

One of the longest straight roads in the Lower Keys is Key Deer Boulevard which points due north three and a half miles across Big Pine Key. Two thirds of the way to the end when you think you somehow have driven too far, there it is, a brown sign announcing the blue hole.

This being winter the Blue Hole attracts quite a few cars, and I might add no masks (except mine). A few days ago I made one of my sarcastic remarks comparing mask wearing requirements to stores that require customers to wear shirts and shoes and my rather heavy handed humor insinuating that the shirt requirement  should be abolished got me a written reprimand. No, I don't really want to see naked chests when I go shopping. However I did see a lot of naked faces congregating around the alligator. 

The signs against feeding are generally in vain I believe. The previous alligator in the Blue Hole suffocated when it ingested a pink plastic toy thrown at it in the water. Every visitor to Florida live sin holy terror of the alligator yet it is the dinosaur that is at risk from contact with humans. Ah irony.

Don't forget: "don't feed the wildlife." In case you had forgotten while walking across the fifty foot pathway to the water's edge - DON'T FEED THE WILDLIFE.

I made a comment to the  person six feet away about how lucky we were to get to see the elusive alligator, a comment that elicited a blank stare.  No less than I deserve no doubt. I don't much care to talk to people on my days off but when I overcome my reluctance in an effort to be polite I get rebuffed. I make a terrible salesman. They could not  take their eyes off the alligator which gave no signs of life and gave an excellent imitation of paint drying...under water.

There is all sorts of information about alligators and wildlife refuges for anyone with a penchant for information, of which there were none. People came, looked, got bored instantly and left. For the record: crocodiles are salt water creatures, shy and retiring and can be found occasionally in the Keys, mostly the northern islands nearest Florida Bay.  One swam down to key West for a socially isolated vacation probably and caused a sensation. I remarked rather tartly to my long suffering wife that seeing a polar bear might perhaps have been cause for astonishment in the sub-tropics.

Alligators are freshwater creatures much easier to find in the Everglades than in the Keys where freshwater is scarce. The parks people say alligators cruise the Keys looking for fresh water but I've never seen one in 20 years of walking the trails. I suppose from my perspective it's good that they say this stuff so more people are scared and I get to be alone in the back country.

I have to say the Blue Hole was looking slightly blue when seen from  a certain angle.

Though really the water is green and somewhat tannic when you look straight down. There are no rivers or lakes in the Keys and places like the Blue Hole are created by humans digging up the rock to make gravel for construction and the resulting quarry, when abandoned fills with rain water and here it is: alligator country. Humans import the alligators, they don't just sprout here by magic.

A pleasant spot to waste fifteen minutes on your way to pick up groceries at Winn Dixie up the road. 

I was lucky enough to get to see the wild creature of the deep on this trip.

I don't come here that often but he (or she) made this trip worthwhile. Let's face it, alligator watching isn't that interesting but without the sight of the dinosaur the Blue Hole is pretty much as interesting as any backyard pond Up North. 

Mask free parenting: bring them up right!  I stepped aside for them and they walked by pretending I wasn't there. The Keys do attract some socially inept people. Myself among them I suppose.

It was a good afternoon to out looking at Nature.

Blue Hole

I took the photographs on this page on August 28th three days before my epic scooter crash. It was a gloomy damp day typical of summer rainy season and I was looking for a place to walk Rusty away from mud and puddles. Besides I hadn’t visited the Blue Hole, a freshwater former gravel quarry turned into a tourist attraction, in a long time. 

We were alone. And the hole is not at all blue even under sunny skies.

There are a couple of alligators in the water but there was no sign of wildlife at all. No turtles no dinosaurs no birds. Except himself. 

It was a pleasant enough interlude and I enjoyed strolling around with Rusty. I didn’t know how lucky I was to be walking...

It’s a short walk made shorter because half the circumference is closed to the public. The edges are vertical rock and not easy for a dog to climb up.  I know this as Cheyenne took an accidental plunge years ago and I hauled her wet 100 pounds out in double time seeing her as the most vulnerable and tasty of alligator bait. 

No drama necessary.

The Blue Hole

Let me be quite clear: there were no alligators to be seen at the Blue Hole when I was there on Tuesday. This picture I took in 2014 and I put it here to not disappoint as everyone likes to see alligators apparently:

Here's another one from that same expedition:

This week there were none to be seen. But there were lots of warnings:

I wonder what people bring to feed the alligators? Table scraps? Stinky dead chickens? As for disturbing an alligator, even the relatively small ones that live here you may be doing the human race a favor if you are that stupid. Let it be enough to see and admire. However, as hard as I looked I saw none.

So, what is the Blue Hole?  It's a quarry that has filled with rain water and created a fresh water pond where no ponds or lakes are meant to exist. The limestone rock of the Keys is  porous and the salt water table is not very deep so fresh water lakes are rare except where humans have dug out the rock typically to create construction gravel.

 It is technically a hole.

Though why it's called "Blue" I don't know. See for yourself in these pictures, the water is nondescript and not blue whatever else it is.

It's a pretty spot especially on a wet weekday afternoon in August when tourists are away and alligators rule.

You can and should walk out onto the viewing platform and you may spot a creature basking in the sun in the shallows right underneath the platform itself. It is tempting to get a frisson of fear being so close to an alligator but  it's worth remembering that a recent resident died of starvation after swallowing a plastic toy thrown in the water by an unsupervised child.

 As usual even the most fearsome nature can be overcome by human ingenuity.

 The Keys are small in terms of landmass so as isolated as you may feel in come places on land you are generally never too far from some well trodden path.

You can walk half way round the hole and right up to the edge but the water itself is a foot or so below the level of the rock. Swimming is not advised. I had my old Labrador Cheyenne fall in once and I wasted no time in getting my arms around her portly self and whisking her out. She didn't seem to notice or care but she was a phlegmatic dog was Cheyenne.

Rusty I trust rather more to take care of himself. I have walked him in wilderness and he is very alert to danger. I have seen him in the Everglades turn round and walk smartly back to the car for no reason I could understand but I never argue with his reactions. I don't doubt he saw an alligator or a boa where I could see nothing. He is a survivor is my little brown bundle of joy.

 He  stayed close as we wandered around.

We spent a pleasant half hour taking pictures and taking in the modest views and smelling the interesting scents.

I'm not sure the telescope is much use unless wildlife is present but there it is, a rather nice old timey touch for those that care to spy on nature.

More Bloody Alligators

I had to do some of those absurd chores that mainland dwellers only ever have to do. Here in paradise stuff like going to the bank and buying milk is not something we have to concern ourselves with, as this is like living in Disneyworld and everyday chores happen effortlessly after dark when the Disney gnomes and janitors come out and re-stock our fridges and launder our costumes for us so we can go about our day being locals in the Fabulous Florida Keys.

Which is not exactly how it happens in real life so I was in fact going to the bank and Winn Dixie and Cheyenne was snoozing so I figured I might as well ride. It was an overcast cool day and I was having as much as fun as one can have with a Vespa in a  corner of Flatistan not renowned for its variety of roads. But I have been around Big Pine Key a bit so I knew where there were some back roads I hadn't explored in a  while, so yesterday was the day to do just that.

Then  as Ixora became 17th which dead ended into Wilder Road I thought to myself: Self, how can we put off shopping for  food for a little bit longer while having fun puttering by Vespa? Why, we should go and see if there are any alligators at the Blue Hole, self suggested. And, by gum there were alligators in the Blue Hole, two of them sunning themselves in the weak sunshine that had broken through the cloud cover.   

Usually in winter there is always somebody at the Blue Hole, a former gravel quarry on Key Deer Boulevard but  winter season is over and emptiness is starting to prevail.

A loud family was walking across the opposite side of the pond but I was alone at the observation deck with two relatively large dinosaurs, the largest perhaps six feet long at most?

It was me, alone with my alligators, and the usual detritus of human visitors, plastic and trash. I wasn't going to reach in to collect the bottles thoughtlessly hurled into the water, but it was in fact a plastic toy that a previous occupant known as Bacardi swallowed and from which ingestion the alligator died. These creatures have more to fear from us than we from them it turns out. 

That lesson is brought home to any thinking visitor by the fact that there are no fences keeping these toothy residents away from stupid people ambling the paths around the hole. Last time I brought Cheyenne here she tried to get down to the water to take a drink but she is not necessarily large enough to frighten an alligator so a tight leash is a good idea around here.

It is true that people do get attacked by alligators in South Florida  so it is wise not to swim in fresh water unless you have a pretty good idea who is in it. The problem with alligators and crocodiles is that they are opportunistic, and will seize and drown victims even if they aren't hungry. they cannot tear very easily with their fixed jaws so they parked their drowned victims in  holes and wait for them to rot. This means that unlike sharks which hunt when hungry usually at dusk and dawn, alligators and crocodiles snag  food when available.

 Florida has  an abundance of fresh water alligators but the rather less aggressive (they say) salt water crocodile is endangered. The difference between the two is hard to discern, a slightly more square snout on the crocodile I am told and a shy retiring personality. Supposedly you can find them anywhere in the Keys and Florida Bay but outside Key Largo crocodiles are hardly ever seen and outside the Blue Hole there is no body of fresh water to sustain alligators.

Like pirates, alligators suffer from an image problem that has little to do with the reality of their lives, and like pirates that never hung out in Key West, alligators animate visitors' imaginations more than they do any reality of daily life in the Fabulous Florida Keys.

The truth is that laundry plays a far bigger role in daily life around here than alligators. It would be fun to be able to claim that alligator wrestling is a constant feature of an exciting dynamic life around here but you are probably more at risk of dying in a blizzard than I am of encountering an aggressive reptile.

 

If I am to die a violent death I am far more likely to be run down while amusing myself on two wheels than as lunch for a croc...banal but true.

My wife's ET4 Vespa is a mild unassuming thing but like alligators it moves surprisingly fast and has cut off more low self esteem penises on Overseas Highway drivers than you might imagine have been eaten by alligators. I am still waiting for my restored P200 Vespa to be restored to me, but that too should do a nice job of riding faster than car drivers expect and with a manual gearbox it should be easier to explore on dirt on the back roads of Big Pine. At least we know the alligators will always be at the Blue Hole on Big Pine assuming the humans don't kill them.   

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