What to Do If You See an Alligator While Kayaking
Here’s the thing nobody tells first-time paddlers: seeing an alligator on a swamp trip is the goal, not the emergency. You came out here to see one. And almost every single time you do, nothing happens at all. The gator clocks you, decides you’re too big and too weird to bother with, and slides off the log into the black water. That’s the whole event. I’ve guided a lot of mornings out on the water, and I can tell you the encounters that scare people are almost never the ones that matter. A wild gator wants nothing to do with a human. It has spent its whole life learning that we are trouble, and its instinct is to put distance between itself and you. So before we get into steps, hold onto that. The odds are already on your side….