3.6.08The symphony of sounds in a swamp at night can only be rivaled by those of the sunrise. This is what I have been waiting for: to watch and listen to the swamp awaken from the water. I am up just before the night sky begins to show its first shades of daylight. The familiar morning mist is floating over the water, this morning it is a thick fog that rises high above the trees. I launch and let the river take me only gently paddling so I can hear the echos of the swamp uninterrupted. The fog creates mystical shadows of trees and the calls of crepuscular creatures rise through out the forest. I hear the barred owls calling one another just as John Rood had discribed the day before. The sun finally sends its first beams of light to be difused by the mist and create a mystical ambience. The fog puts up a good fight but it is no match for the suns power that eventually pulls down the curtain of steam to reveal the true colors of the landscape around me. Gray deciduos trees, crowned with green pines and splashed with red and purple from the budding trees climb up layered sediments of clay and granite that sometimes rise hundreds of feet in the air. On each winding turn the willows reach into the river from the inside bank and while hardwoods tower from the eroded shelf of the outside bank. The weather radio is calling for 100% chance of rain this evening once again ruining my plans of staying several relaxing days in the forest. Now I must cover the entire 3 day paddle I had planned in one afternoon. I know that my crew will soon get worried if I do not check in as planned so I paddle with urgency towards the next state park. After several hours, the Wateree joins the Congaree to form the Santee and I find myself at the beginning of Lake Marion. A loud splash startles me from the shore and then another one shortly afterwards. I begin paying closer attention to the shoreline and discover the source of the commotion….aligators! I stop counting after 20 as I pass one aligator after another, sunning themselves on the shore, some more than 10feet long. I have never seen aligators on this part of the Santee in previous scouting trips and never so many! I am used to aligators and know that attacks are extremely rare but my pace increases anyway as I make it across a shallow, drought beaten, Lake Marion to Santee State park by the afternoon. At the park, I upgrade my campsite to a cabin, secure my gear, and settle in to prepare for the incoming storms. I still find time to go on a nature walk in order to take advantage of the short term good weather before turning in for the evening.