EVERGLADES CITY, Fla.— The Everglades are among America’s most famous swamps, with a reputation for mosquitoes to match.

So we bought repellant for a quick trip to view the swamp and its wildlife there last winter. But on a perfect day spent kayaking through the mangroves of Big Cypress National Preserve, we didn’t even bother applying it.

Not too hot. Not too cold. And nary a mosquito to be seen.

Our trip was organized by the Ivey House Bed & Breakfast, a 1920s boardinghouse in Everglades City that now is an outdoors-oriented bed-and-breakfast and lodge.

The Ivey House also is a full-service outfitter for Everglades explorers, offering everything from guided multiday trips through the swamps, to rental canoes and camping gear for those setting off on their own, to shorter day trips such as ours.

Driving to the put-in, our guide turned at an unmarked corner and stopped beside a backwater. We walked to the edge and waited. Soon, a blunt gray nose poked barely above the water and exhaled. Then another. And another. We were watching manatees surfacing to breathe, drawn up from the Gulf Coast by the warmer inland water.

On the shore — if it could be called that — were bald cypress, maples, oaks, willows, cattails, cabbage palms, swamp dogwoods, and pond apples. We paddled through sawgrass, stopping to watch two small alligators sunning themselves, until we found ourselves in the heart of a cypress forest, which included arching trees with buttressed bases and freestanding “knees.”

In the afternoon, we paddled south toward the coast, and the character of the river changed. As we entered the brackish water of the mangrove forest the river closed in to form a narrow tunnel, the roots creating an intricate web. We paddled through an open pond full of blooming water lilies, then plunged back into the mangrove tunnels. The trees crowded until we had to break down our kayak paddles and paddle canoe-style. Soon it was too crowded to paddle at all, and we simply pulled ourselves branch by branch through the mangroves.

Finally we reached another open pond, perhaps 50 feet across. A 3-foot alligator drifted motionless in the center, and we lay back and watched him.

We were back in Everglades City in time for dinner, and for me it was another encounter with an alligator. This time, however, it was an entrée at the laid-back Oyster House restaurant. How could I resist Southern fried alligator?

I expected some kind of alligator steak, but instead what arrived was a platter of oyster-size breaded nuggets, with a taste resembling a slightly rubbery chicken. With fries and a beer, it was a fitting end to the day.