It's a fairly short tunnel, which emerges into a small pond surrounded by thick mangroves overtopped by tall cypress. If you don't know the river, you think you have reached the end of the line! But look carefully to the right for the cave-like entrance into the next tunnel.

The ecosystem changes to a sawgrass plain when you emerge. I spotted otters here once. Large leather ferns dominate the banks.

Keep paddling, until on your left, the canal entrance appears. It's been blocked off by rocks and dirt. Usually a gator will be hanging out here, if you are needing to see a gator for some reason.

By now, you are in need of a real leg-stretching, so fortunately there is a bit of high ground ahead on the tree island on the left (east) side of the river.

There are even picnic tables now! The classically idyllic view of the Everglades below was taken from that area, on a misty morning in autumn of 1993.

That was our fleet then: Do-er on the left, Do-It on the right.

This 1993 photo was when we were working with a great group of students from Florida International University who wanted to learn about the Everglades. On a very early morning, one of the students came face to muzzle with a Florida panther.

The brigand below, is my Faithful Bow Paddler himself, horticulturist John Reid of Big Pine Key, who signed on as official photographer for the Borel Expedition.

We were in the sawgrass prairie, and listening for the airboats which were then allowed in the area. Hearing the roar of a far-off airboat, coming ever closer to our fragile canoes, made us feel as if we were in Jurassic Park and a T-rex was hunting us.

After the third and last Seminole War, on the eastern side of the river mouth, the former Army guide Richard Turner homesteaded on what was then called Chokolisca Creek.

South of our rest stop, on the western side, we got out of our canoes into a hammock, and Ms. Borel and her group of scientists took core samples of the soil. Growing there were bananas and some fruit trees, planted by an unknown homesteader. There was no evidence of any dwelling as the swamp is quick to overwhelm what humans leave behind.

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