To call a swamp a swamp may

be politically incorrect in today's heightened awareness

of the importance of wetlands, but having just spent a

couple of weeks in northeast Florida, I'll gladly call a

swamp a swamp and assure you they are deserving of every

good word we can say about them.

Our little river boat,

Alice III, became a swamp crawler, just right for

exploring the rivers and creeks and bogs that form the

earth's circulatory system the way veins and arteries

form ours. Carefully choosing the season - February

is warm enough in Florida, and still fairly bug-free

- we put A-3 in at Doctor's Inlet south of

Jacksonville and turned upstream on the St. John's River.

(Odd: on a river flowing south to north; "up"

means south and "down" means north.)

The St. John's is a

worthwhile cruise in itself, but our delight was in

nosing into the tributaries that empty into it. Each has

its own personality, some seemingly as remote as an

uncharted jungle, others lined with fishing cottages,

upscale homes and boathouses. We passed between neighbors

conversing across a creek from their decks and

"woofed" back at dogs who felt honor-bound to

swim out to chase our boat.

We listened to barred owls

all night holding spirited discussions around a table

surely six miles across. We waved to fishermen we passed

on the river, and soon learned that the answer to

"Catching anything?" is always "Nah, not

much."

They can't imagine why

anyone would be on the river without a rod and line. I'm

tempted to call out, just to see the look on their faces,

"Pardon me. Could you tell me where's the best

birding around here?"

The little swamp rivers are

the ones we like best - North Fork of the Black

River, the Oklawaha, Deep Creek. When we turned into Deep

Creek, a half dozen alligators splashed from their

sunning places beside an aptly named waterway. Both deep

and wide, it was home to the first white ibis of our trip

and a couple of yellow-crowned night herons, as well as

an egret rookery. Huge turtles flashed red bellies at us

when they dove off their logs, and a red-shouldered hawk

in full voice circled overhead with several black

vultures and a pair of ospreys.

We continued twisting

through the tight curves of Deep Creek, through forest

that can only be described as primordial. As swamp.

Cypress knees, fallen logs, scruffy palmettos lined our

way. Spanish moss swung from overhead branches, and air

plants studded the lichen-crusted trunks of trees. Bright

yellow flowers were just beginning to stud the vast green

beds of water lilies lining the sunlit curves.

We traveled slowly, both to

take in the scenery and to avoid rocking folks fishing

from assorted crafts in nearly every pool. A couple of

miles in, beyond where we thought we'd see any more

fishermen, we came upon a couple in a beat-up aluminum

skiff. They looked about our age, but had the marks of a

harder life.

He raised a hand and said,

"Need some help." I wasn't sure if this was a

question or a statement, so I asked him if HE needed help

as Dave slowed the boat almost to a stop. He wanted a

jump-start or a battery or a tow, he said, and I heard

Dave mutter something about cutting short our day to tow

home some guy that had killed his starting battery

running his trolling motor, and with no spare or starting

rope. Redundancy is Dave's middle name. The Alice has two

golf cart batteries, a deep-cycle starting battery, a

generator AND a starting rope.

We came back around,

fending off branches, and threw the improvident fisherman

a line. He handled it adeptly, never losing his grip on

the cigarette between his fingers. Assured by the

fisherman that his engine runs well, Dave opted for the

simplest solution and handed over our starting rope. The

old guy says to his wife, "Now, mama, this is what I

want you to do: Turn the key - " She says,

"Clockwise?" He says, "Yeah," gives

one pull to the rope and the rusty old engine fires up

lustily.

"Thanks, mister,"

says the fisherman. "What do I owe you?" He

hands back the rope and proffers a dirty paw we both had

to shake. "Nothing, nothing," Dave assured him

heartily, feeling more generous since the day was saved

with minimal loss of time. "We weren't doing

anything important. Just bird-watching."

"Would you have towed

them in?" I asked Dave after we hauled in our line

and pushed away from the wobbly skiff. "Sure,"

he said. "It's the code of the sea. We did our good

deed for the day."

He was feeling rather

pleased with himself. "Fair's fair. Those boys

helped us," recalling three college lads who helped

push us off a beach when the tide left us aground the

previous morning. I smiled. He bristled.

"No, no," I said.

"I was just thinking. About now he's probably saying

to Mama, `What'd that fellow say they were doing on the

creek? Watching birds?"

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