Tuesday 3rd January – the hunt for Manatees

Having done a little laundry we reluctantly left Cody’s RV park.  The hunt for manatees was on! First stop, the Crystal River where I’d heard that friends of ours had seen manatees before.  But the current was too strong and the lady at the park office said that the temperature out in the sea hasn’t dropped low enough for many off them to come inland to seek warmth.  This made me nervous, were we too early to see any?  We were advised to try Kings’ Bay, further down the crystal river.  The sky was somewhat overcast today and I started questioning if it was a sensible time to go kayaking.  We arrived at a car park next to a boat launch ramp in Kings’ Bay and luckily bumped into some rangers who were there.  They gave us a very specific area to head to where people had seen manatees today.  All we had to do was paddle across the bay in some very choppy water against the current to three-sisters spring, which may take about an hour…. Not sure if Simon was very keen we set up the kayak and set off.  The current wasn’t as bad as feared and it was less than an hour when we reached a calmer section of river containing some ‘cordoned off’ areas which are safe areas for the manatees to rest without human presence.  We had brought our mask and snorkel kit with us so I claimed first go, jumping overboard from the Kayak.  The problem, the water by these safe areas was so murky I couldn’t see into them! However, there were some tour groups of snorkelers about who were disappearing along a small stream into the spring, so I followed them.  These areas were patrolled by the manatee police!  Seriously, there were rangers on every corner watching swimmers like hawks to ensure that nobody over-stepped the line with the manatees.  It was great to see that their protection is taken so seriously. The spring was still quite murky but this made it even more impressive when, out of the gloom appeared not one but TWO manatees, almost swimming right into me! I have done my best to trim a couple of videos but the files are still too large to share with you sadly. 

I was not prepared for the size of these graceful animals! That is my excuse for the shoddy camera work and I’m sticking to it. It was great to achieve my aim of getting to swim with them. I returned to find Simon paddling around the river and we swapped places.  He had more luck by the cordoned off zone, spotting our biggest manatee yet (see video hopefully)...

The paddle back to dry land was less painful, partly due to a successful mission, partly as we were with the tide this time.  We dried the boat down and packed it away before hitting the road towards Rainbow Springs State Park.  We arrived just before dusk and discovered we had a really secluded site for a couple of nights.  Whilst we were setting up a bald eagle soared past, which was an impressive welcome.

Our secluded campsite