Blue Springs State Park

Flagler Beach, Florida

We started our day with our usual early morning sunrise at the beach.  It was very windy and a little chilly with the wind blowing straight off the Atlantic.

I liked this picture showing the heavy surf and the shrimp boat in the background. 

We went home for a little while then decided to head over to Blue Springs State Park.  We hadn’t been there for years and didn’t remember anything about the campground.

On the way to the park we were traveling on I-4.  There was this  Class C pulling a pretty good sized travel trailer.  He was weaving all over the road and going over the speed limit.  We finally were able to get in front of him and he was texting with one hand and holding the wheel with the other.  I think he may have been transporting new rv’s.

We got away from him as fast as we could and arrived safely at the park.

Blue Springs State Park is home to a large concentration of Manatee.  They start arriving once the ocean and rivers start cooling down.  The spring water is a year round “warm” temperature of 72 degrees, so it’s the warmest water they can find during the winter months.

There were a few Manatees already and we spent quite a while watching them.  Once a large population of them come in, they close the swimming and kayaking area off to protect the manatee.

Today, there was a group of 22 kayakers!  I think it was the senior citizen regatta!

It was pretty breezy and cool there, so we didn’t get our kayaks wet!  Yeah, we’re wimps.

There was a family there from Minnesota.  The little 8 year old girl Erin was snorkeling with the Manatee and really enjoying it.  The Manatee seemed interested in her and would come right up and look at her.

She wasn’t alone.  Her dad was right there with her while her mom went to buy her a snorkel.

This was two adults and a baby manatee.

Her mom finally got back with masks and snorkels.

I got a  few nice shots of mama and baby manatee.

We finally drug ourselves away from the Manatee and went over to the campground.

I expected the campground to be small with cramped sites, but we were surprised how nice the sites were.  Many of them were big rig friendly.

The main road was paved and plenty wide.  No tight curves or overhanging trees.

The sites were completely private and angled so that you could more easily  back in.

They were sandy…no concrete pads here.

Site 25

Site 18.  This is one of 2 sites that you cannot reserve.  We determined we could fit into both this site and 39 which also could not be reserved.

 

Si 39 doesn’t look as pretty, but Al thinks we could get a satellite signal there, plus there were lots of birds around, including the rare Florida Scrub Jay.

We want to spend a few days at a state park when we leave here, but they are all booked up for the week-ends.  We figured if we can get one of these two sites we would be locked in for the week-end.  Hopefully no one else will get there before next week!

It’s really a very nice campground and we’re anxious to spend some time there.