My mother never understood our need for adventure nor did she understand why Daddy always had to be in the middle of it. Our adventure into the Okefenokee Swamp was no different.
We got together around the table and by phone to coordinate schedules and pool ideas to formulate a plan. On two different occasions, we took a camping trip into the Okefenokee Swamp. Now I’m a mountain girl. Swamps and lowlands aren’t my first choice, but I couldn’t miss those trips!
We gathered up everything we needed to camp in the swamp – tents, rope, Coleman stove, lanterns, food, fishing gear, insect repellant, water. Once we arrived at our destination, we got our canoes and put in at the dock. We were off.
The swamp is a fascinating place that teems with life. Birds of various kinds flew from tree to tree. Fish in the canal jumped leaving behind ripples in water as dark as brewed tea. Flowers and foliage lined the banks. The reflection of the trees in the water was so vivid I couldn’t tell where the trees ended and the reflection began. There were logs floating in the canals. As we got closer we saw the logs had eyes. Then they just disappeared. Something scraped the bottom of the canoe, and the canoe started rocking. Those logs weren’t logs – they were gators!
I’ve been on trips with my sisters before, and I’ve learned some lessons: always have a secret stash hidden in my pack and never give all the food to just one person. On one particular swamp trip my brother-in-law was along. As we rowed through the main canal, we would take an occasional side waterway to explore deeper into the swamp. My brother-in-law’s canoe took another canal to fish. The rest of us went on ahead. It was getting close to time to find our campsite, get our tents set up and cook supper before dark. We found our site, docked and got our tent up on the assigned platform. After waiting a while for the others, we went ahead and gathered our supplies to fix supper. We had caught enough fish for a mess. Though my brother-in-law had many of the food items in his canoe, we managed to pool our stashed resources and came up with enough to supplement our catch. After getting everything cleaned up from supper, we tied up the other food items into the rafters of the platform. The others never did show up.
It got dark. Let me tell you, when it’s dark in the swamp, it is dark! There was no way the other travelers could see to make their way to us in the dark. We had the tents, stove and lanterns. There was nothing we could do, so we went and crawled into our sleeping bags for a good night’s sleep. We heard noises in the middle of the night. We all turned our flashlights on and saw raccoons using our tied up supplies as punching bags as they tried to grab a free meal.
Our intention was to do some exploring in the swamp. Instead, after a bite of breakfast, we loaded up and headed out to find our missing companions. We came to the main canal, made the turn, and there they were. There was a picnic table next to a small dock. They had made their way to the canal at dark and slept on the picnic tables. They didn’t get carried off by gators or skeeters. We left the swamp with many stories to share and add to our memories.