2,000 lbs of pressure per square inch

Captian Ken ( in long southern drawl ) '' So y'aaalll see some noise abaaaator headphones beside ya for ya use ''

Dumbass Aussie tourist Nick - '' Are you recommending we use them or is it a mere suggestion ?''

Captain Ken - '' Son , suggestion or recommendation don't matter too much to me , all I know is back there   ( pointing to back of air boat where the mother of all fans seems attached to an equally impressively sized engine ) I have myyyyyyself 400 horsepower and I plaaaan on running it like I just stole it ''


So the air boat trip started.

Mr ''creative accounting with my age '' ( aka my flying instructor ) told me yesterday that Saturday was his one day off for the week so we would reconvene our flying on Sunday. Sounded good to me. There is so much FAA air law a man can digest in 3 days.

 So what could I do with my spare time I wondered. Yesterday we had flown over the Everglades and Mr creative accounting had pointed out Everglades  City. ''City'' is a bit of of an exaggeration for it is essentially an outpost community in the middle of nowhere but smack bang in the middle of the western shores of the Everglades. Now nothing exciting used to happen in Everglades City until drug runners decided  the mangroves would be ideal cover to land their contraband ashore the USA and have it picked up by large trucks in late 70's and early 80's. Now Everglades ''City'' is one of the hot destinations for air boat enthusiasts and eco tourists on the western southern coastline of Florida. A simple 38 miles from Naples it made for me an interesting day out.

Air boating. We have all seen it and if we are brave enough to admit it we probably first saw it when we watched Don Johnson running around in that silver coloured raw silk suit catching criminals in Miami Vice back in the 80's.

Well, Everglades ''City'' is the epicentre for air boating in the Everglades and so I set off there but not before I got slightly mangled on gin n tonics on Friday night discussing Obama with a couple from Boston in a local Irish Bar. They had both voted for him and both were very disillusioned and bitterly disappointed with how ineffective his presidency had been.

An easy 36 miles form Naples and having parted with 37 Dollars I got to spend an enthralling 45 minutes in the company of Captain Ken and 5 other tourists aboard an air boat.

Given the cold snap we have just had here in Naples , Capt. Ken was quick to point out that we were unlikely to see any alligators as being warm blooded reptiles they don't like the cold and given the water temperature is 5-10 degrees warmer than the air temperature at the moment they spend most of their time under water which they can do for up to two hours at a time.

Well it must have been our lucky day for we did see one. A pup really compared to the crocodiles of PNG or far north Australia. This one was ''only '' 12 feet long and looked relatively docile. They exert 2,000 lbs of pressure per square inch with their jaws compared to 5,000 for a croc. They grow to an average size of 12-14 feet compared to 15-18 feet for a croc.Their snouts are shorter and rounder than a croc and put the two into a pond to fight it out a croc will win every time. Regardless like all prehistoric creatures they are fascinating to observe. I guess because you half expect something really bad to happen at any moment. Bit like the only reason anyone would want to watch NASCAR racing. For the accidents.