Beach Bodies in Florida

While watching and waiting, in the old neighborhood I engaged in a couple of little afternoon diversions.  A little something to get me out of the house for a couple of hours, I decided to go in search of beach bodies in the sun.  

In doing so I checked something off my bucket list, I went for an airboat ride. An Airboat is a flat bottom boat with an aircraft type propeller on the back that skips over the surface, they move well in swampy or shallow waters. 

I had never ridden on an airboat before.   I have driven past the docks at Midway on the St Johns River a thousand times, and never stopped. I did recently, and it was great fun.  It was warm, but windy, very very very windy.  The sun was starting to peak through the clouds.  We went south from State Road 50, around a few bends in the river and slowed for the packed beach. Oh, my! There were 18 adult gators on the beach at this one point, and 5 more on the opposite shore.  

The ride was $40 for one hour, reservations are recommended. The driver provided a good narration.  We saw several species of birds, including an adult Bald-Eagle (sorry the pictures didn't come out.) I would do it again, maybe on a less windy day.  

Gators, a side story.  When I was a gym-rat in Orlando a gym friend was having a affair with a woman who was married to a man who worked at gator farm. Apparently the husband figured his wife was screwing around and with whom. The young body builder was met in a parking lot and spent a few minutes locked in a gator cage on the farm (kidnapping is such a dirty word - but yes he was abducted from a parking lot.) He was allowed to leave with his body parts intact after promising to NEVER screw around with another married woman.  I suspect he has kept that promise. 

Would you go for a ride to this beach?