“He will tear your arm off in four years, but today he is as gentle as a kitten,” said Glen Wilsey, the Gatorman of the Florida Everglades. We were at the Billie Swamp Safari on the sovereign soil of the Seminole Nation. Wilsey had strode up to me seconds before and handed me the baby alligator as a greeting. I guess that’s hello for swamp tour guides. The reptile wasn’t gentle as a kitten. He was actually trying to turn around and bite me but as the tiny terror squirmed in my hands, I knew this was going to be a GREAT day. 

Our tour guide took us to the mess hall first, past pens of giant tortoises, cages of beautiful snakes (Yes, snakes are beautiful and I have loved them ever since I was a kid!), an alligator wrestling pen and various exotic parrots. As we dined on a feast of fried gator nuggets, catfish, frogs' legs and hearts of palm – all Everglades native foods – Wilsey started to spin his yarns in the way that only a swamp guide can. 

Wilsey loves gators. He doesn’t just show them to tourists. He swims with them. He lives with them. He talks to them. He feeds them. He does everything that you and I should never do with alligators. But despite being a character, Wilsey is a very altruistic and serious conservationist. He knows more about alligators and swamp fauna than anyone in South Florida. His purpose in life is to interpret nature for people who care to listen and to advocate for preservation and proper wildlife management. Think of him as kind of a Lorax that wears alligator teeth. His infectious enthusiasm makes a day at Billie’s Swamp Safari perfect for any family who wants to see wildlife or any grown-up kid like myself that wants to go hunting for snakes.

And so The Boulevard's adventure began…

Wilsey took us out to his swamp buggy, a Goliath contraption with giant wheels up to my shoulders. “Gonna get a little bumpy in here,” he chuckles. I should have heeded his warnings. I had no idea. 

The swamp buggy took the six of us through a huge Jurassiac Park-style gate. As the huge metal clunked closed behind us, I suddenly felt vulnerable. I was behind a 16-foot fence in a Dr. Seuss-like vehicle driven by a man in snake boots who wrestles alligators for affection. This was a good day out of the office.

Billie’s Swamp Safari has numerous exotic game that were brought to Florida from Asia, Africa and South America. Huge water buffaloes from Australia roam freely and stare at you as the buggy roars by slowly. Exotic pigs and zebras peek out of various bushes. Animals you have never seen before with names you have never heard gracefully acknowledge you as their guests across this 250-acre preserve. Birds of every kind trot everywhere. Spoon bills, ibis, various types of heron, everglade kites and numerous red shoulder hawks all swoop around carelessly unbothered by our cantankerous noise.

“Watch your heads as we get into the canopy, you don’t wanna get swatted in the face,” calls Wilsey. By this time in the tour I should be taking the warnings a little more seriously, but I learn the hard way as a palm frond slaps across my cheek. The buggy enters a narrow trail, overgrown on both sides with solid leaves for a top. For more than 90 minutes, we wind through the dense cypress swamp, looking at every leaf, bird and tiny lizard. 

Wilsey knows everything in the woods. He provides anecdotes, myth and fact about everything, from how the salicylic acid in willow sprigs was chewed by cowboys to ward off headaches to how gentle sassafras was used as an early toilet paper. At every turn, he asks us to be silent lest we catch a glimpse of a gator. At every bend he reminds us that this is the territory of the Florida panther. We see neither, but it doesn’t matter. Our guide’s inherent intrigue is more than enough. 

At a replica of a native village deep in the swamp we stop. Wilsey kicks over a fire ant mound and the stinging deadly insects ooze like coffee grinds out of the sand. Safely back in our buggy, he takes a chip of rock and some cloth husk from his pocket. Every young boy knows this trick – create sparks and make the husk catch fire if you can. “My record is 13 seconds,” he says, to which I sit in silent and polite disbelief. He chips the rock, deftly directing a spark to land on the husk, and within 20 seconds, a flame emerges from his hands. This guy could survive outside forever. I would still be pounding the flint rocks together.

“Now we are going to see the animals that I live for, the gators!” says Wilsey as he revs up the engine of the airboat on the second part of our tour. We hold onto the rails and wind our way through the sawgrass and water hyacinth. The engine shuts off. The steely eyes of an American alligator coldly stare at us over the surface of the water. One comes up to the side of our boat as Wilsey sweet talks it. “Come on up, sweetheart, it's alright. The nice magazine people want to say hello.” The alligator bumps into the aluminum hull with a thud as Jason Feinberg and Tina Guiomar shoot pictures too close for comfort and publisher Angela Anton, dive buddy Brian Piece and I casually move to the other side in fear. Wilsey points out an alligator on the other side. Then another. Then another. Then another. Pretty soon everywhere you look there are nothing but alligators! Too many to count…

The fear subsides and for just one moment I realize I am truly out of the office. The novelty of being deep in the Florida Everglades surrounded by more than 50 alligators is, well, unforgettable and exhilarating. It is truly the ultimate day out for anyone staying at the Hard Rock Seminole or passing through South Florida. And for this reporter, it was a chance to be 13 again, looking for dangerous reptiles in the woods. We didn’t see a snake the whole day, though…guess I will have to go back again and go out with Wilsey.