By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
sallies@juno.com

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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