Dead Boy Creek – The Mystery of who Killed Allie Gator?

       We are still awaiting the arrival of my wife Tamara from her Seattle Business trip. Once she gets here the expedition will begin. So we wait. I miss her – hurry up!       

       We left Millers Marina a little after noon. I thought about buying a slot for the entire month. You see Bill Miller charges $40.00 a day but only $360.00 a month for a slip (plus $8 a day for electricity when you are there). We were only in the Marina for 4 days so the extra $200 just did not make sense to me. The only way I’d end up back in a slip is if I had to leave the boat unattended for more than a day. Anchoring is free, plus about $1.50 each hour I run the generator. I would just rather stay out in the beauty of nature. We have a dinghy should we need to take a run into town. Hence we left.

       We sailed forth from the Marina and dropped anchor on the other side of the river. The weather was perfect so we turned everything off opened the windows and relaxed. I do mean perfect. Warm breezy with clear blue skies.

       After several hours the exploration bug bit us and we pulled anchor and drove up river for a couple miles. The water ran mostly deep between 6 and 25 feet. I saw a creek on the chart plotter named “Dead Boy Creek”. We decided to explore it.

       Our lightweight dinghy parted the dark waters of Dead Boy Creek. The unknown waterway appeared narrow, dark, and mysterious. It proved to be quite cavernous, mostly over 10 feet with holes of up to 20 feet deep. A little strange as it was only 30 feet wide. The water is fresh with lily pads and cypress trees lining the banks. The creek was a narrow gorge between towering trees thick with vines. The water was black and foreboding. Disney’s jungle boat ride has nothing on this waterway.

       The waterway became narrower and narrower until it suddenly split in three directions. We made a likely choice and continued our journey. As the water shallowed to less than 3 feet our motor got hung up on a snag of a log. I raised the outboard and lowered the trolling motor. We soon came to the body.

       Lying on its back and rotting was the body of a 5 foot long alligator. It had obviously been severely thrashed and ripped either during or after its death.

       Now I thought to myself what kind of an animal would rip apart a 5 foot long gator? A bigger gator was the only answer that came to me.

       We continued for a bit but the continued shallowing caused us to turn back and return to the mother-ship. We did make a side trip up the main river and spotted two large turtles and a three foot gator making his escape as we approached.

       All in all a pleasant little adventure. We plan to test out our 20 million candle power flashlight this evening on a night exploration of the river for gators.