Meeting Manatees

Fri. Feb. 11- Sat. Feb. 12: The sun was sparkling on the Gulf of Mexico as we left the campground around 10:00 with a clear blue sky and temperatures in the mid-forties. Continuing east on Hwy. 98 we found very little traffic and only a few small towns along the “Forgotten Coast”. We passed in and out of both state and national forests, sometimes hugging the water line, and were surprised to see several Bear Crossing warning signs! At Perry we found a small city park and sat on the bleachers of the baseball field (they were in the sun) to enjoy our picnic lunch with the temperature at 51° and more clouds than sun. At Perry the highway became divided and turned south. About an hour later we arrived at Manatee Springs State Park, where we had a two night reservation. The campground is heavily wooded and our site is right next to a bathroom which hardly shows because of the trees and groundcover. There are only two other sites on our sandy little turn-around. Four deer were grazing at the campsite and they ignored us and only slowly wandered off as we set-up the camper. We did a minimal set-up so we could hike to the spring while the sun was out and the temperature approached the high fifties. There is a path across from our campsite that actually opens right onto the parking for the picnic area at the spring, but, again, it was hidden by the undercover. Manatee Springs is an average high flow limestone sourced spring (50-150 million gallons/day) that has a large pond in which one can see the water bubbling up to the surface. Swimming is allowed in the pond which maintains a constant 72°, but with the heavy algae and visible tree trunks, as well as snake warning signs, it really doesn’t hold any appeal for us. There is a short, fast flowing stream that empties into the Suwannee River. The warm water joining the river attracts manatees, especially this time of year, when the ocean and river are colder. We followed a wooden deck along the spring run and out over the river and joined about 8 other people and one fisherman on the covered deck. Several of the people were from Michigan, including three people from Ludington/Scottsville area, one of whom said she knew Harold and Nancy Hansen and that Nancy is an ex-boyfriend’s sister!! We were happy to see two manatees that slowly came to within about 20 yards of the deck. We could just barely see their dark gray backs in the river water but they occasionally surfaced to breath, just sticking out their snouts before going back under. Even that much was pretty thrilling. It was cooling off so we returned to finish setting up the camper, enjoy the last bit of sun, and then make dinner while listening to NPR’s extensive coverage of the resignation of Egyptian President Mubarak. The evening brought more reading and two games of Cribbage, there being no phone service, no internet and limited TV access here. Saturday morning was sunny and 40° but we had again stayed cozy. We have an electric blanket on the bed and a new Vornado heater with a remote thermostat that does an amazing job of keeping the whole camper at a comfortable temperature without a lot of variation. As long as we have electricity we’re assured of staying cozy. We walked over to the river dock again and were rewarded with seeing two more manatees in about the same spot. The rest of the morning was spent in town getting in touch with people by phone and internet, and buying some groceries. Back in the campground we rode our bikes a short way to walk on the Sinkhole Trail, which passes several large and small sinkholes and has interpretive signs along the .6 mile path. For lunch we ate our first meal of the whole trip outside in the sun as the temperatures rose to the low sixties. We had talked about ways to take our inflatable kayak to the Suwannee River, but it was still cool and breezy enough we weren’t sure how it would go to paddle upriver and then float back down to the truck. Instead we rode our bikes 7 miles on the North Country Trail, all within the State Park lands. The hard packed sand two-track includes 2 miles of a self-guided Nature Trail that informed us of some of the flora and fauna of the area. We saw one large armadillo and otherwise saw signs of resident animals, including deer tracks, tunnels across the trail, and large areas of deep rooting that we assume must be from wild pigs. There also was a large live trap/pen set up near where the rooting was pretty invasive so we think they must be trying to remove the perpetrators. Returning to our campsite we left the bikes to walk over to the river one last time. We (and a small group of others) were thrilled when a manatee slowly made its way up to and then under the dock before turning into the warm water of the spring outlet. Marv got some great pictures of it, as well as a Wood Stork and a large turtle head that poked up as the turtle swam along in the same area that the manatees enjoy. It was cooling off fast as the sun went down. Marv grilled fresh tilapia and I made red beans and rice and a salad, so we enjoyed a really good dinner as we listened to Garrison Keillor’s Prairie Home Companion. Since we are leaving bright and early tomorrow to make it to Brenda and John Sternberg’s Beach House by 11:00 brunch we put away as much as we could and got to bed early.