A Blog Worthy Day

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida

 

Today was cloudy and rainy on and off most of the day, but yesterday (Sunday) was nice, so we took advantage and made a day trip.

We have an annual Florida State Parks pass, so we drove up to Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park. It’s about 60 miles north from the Tampa area. We got in free, with our park pass, but I think they charge $13 per person.  It is more of a zoo, but with all native Florida species, except for Lucifer the hippo.

When the state took over the animal park a few years ago, they relocated all non native species of animals, except Lucifer.   There was a  public outcry when they tried to relocate Lucifer, which ended up with Lucifer being made a Florida citizen so that he could live out his life at the park.  He will be 55 years old in a few weeks and will be having a birthday party.  Poor lonely Lucifer.

We started our day on a boat ride. The captain points out any wildlife he sees along the way, and of course no trip on a Florida waterway would be complete without a gator.

Once we got off the boat, we walked around the grounds.

Lots of beautiful birds.

Red Shouldered Hawk

This was the first time we’ve seen Caracara there.  They appeared to be very small compared to the ones we saw at Kissimmee Prairie Preserve State Park.

Caracara

Snowy Egret

I think the Flamingos are the star of the place…or at least the most colorful.  We actually saw wild Flamingos here in Tampa one year.  Unfortunately, their habitat was destroyed to build houses, but we always remember seeing them in the wild.

Flamingo

There are foxes, Florida panthers and bobcats.  I think the bobcats are the most handsome.

The two red wolves were from a captive breeding program. There are only about 100 of them left in the wild.  This guy looked sad.  So was I.

Red Wolf

Bobcat

 

Florida panther

Love the white ears on this bobcat.

How about this face?   I think this is a horned owl.

The underground springs that supply the Homosassa River provide warm water temps of 72 degrees.  The warm water brings the manatee in from  the gulf seeking warmth.

We walked up on the viewing area by the spring and spotted quite a few manatee.  They were hard to see because the water wasn’t real clear there.

The boats couldn’t go past the ropes, but there are plenty of manatee all through the river.

We continued our walk along the trail to what is called “the fishbowl.”

It sits on top of the springs, which are where the water looks blue.

As you walk on the trail to the fishbowl you start to see a lot of fish, and usually a manatee or two.

You walk down under the water line to go into the fishbowl.

Here is what you see.  Those are all fish, from near to far.

 

These fish with the stripe are snook.

Each different type of fish swim with the same type and the same direction.

The fish in the picture below are jacks.  We had an interesting   encounter on a dive in the gulf one day. It started out with a school of jacks. They (and us) ended up being in the middle of a shark feeding frenzy.  We ended up being surrounded by at least a hundred sharks. It was one of those memories you don’t forget and every time I see a jack, I remember it.

We spoke to a lady in the fish bowl that had lived in Florida 25 years and has never seen a manatee.  We’ve been to the fishbowl many many times and have always seem manatee there…until yesterday.  She thought she was the jinx that kept the manatee away.

We told her exactly where to find the manatee that we had just seen and even pointed her in the right direction.

As soon as she left, and we started walking back along the trail we saw this lone manatee swimming towards the fishbowl.

  

We decided to back down into the fish bowl and get a better look at her underwater.

Isn’t she pretty?

Notice how the schools of fish thinned out?  Those fish are not captive fish.  They can come and go into the river and gulf of Mexico as they wish.  I guess they like the warm water too.

Look at the cute face.

She swam around the fishbowl a while then headed back to the river, doing a little flip on her way.  That is her belly you’re seeing.

 

Here are a few more things we saw on our walk around the park.

These are white pelicans.  They are a lot larger than  the brown pelicans.

Poinsettia growing in the park.  They will bloom every year and  can take some freezing temperature.

Whooping Crane

American Eagle

The animals here are mostly ones that have been injured and can no longer live on their own.  They do a lot of manatee rehabilitation there too, with the goal being to release them back into the wild.  The manatee you saw in these pictures were all wild and free to come and go.  There was one that was captive and held in a pen, so I assume was being nursed back to health.

It’s a fun place to go and see all the native Florida critters.  It’s nicer on a bright sunny day. We had a lot of clouds the day we went, but at least it was warm.

This wasn’t the end to our day.   Come back in a day or so and I’ll show you a LOT more Manatees in some crystal clear blue water!

 

If you want to visit Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park, It’s just off highway 19 in Homosassa, Florida.

Looking for Manatee

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida (high 65, low 52)

 

The cold front is still sticking around, but it looks like we’ll be back up to the upper 70’s tomorrow.

 

Cold weather brings the Florida manatee to warmer water, so we figured yesterday would be a good day to go to Big Ben Power Plant in nearby Apollo Beach.  

We usually go there every year or two.

We hopped on I-75 and made the drive south.  We find it’s much easier to use the interstate nowadays because the traffic is horrible.  It can take 15 minutes to go 5 miles to the grocery store.  Red light, red light, red light.  Too many snowbirds, too many people. 

Back in the 80’s the power plant started noticing manatee hanging out by the warm water discharge areas, during periods of cold weather.  After a manatee got caught in one of their water intake areas, they made changes to prevent it happening in the future. To their credit, they built a wonderful manatee viewing center with trails, viewing areas, and an a visitor center with interactive games for the kids.  The best thing (besides the manatee) is that it’s FREE!

We pulled into the parking lot and noticed these solar trees.

6 of these trees can power two houses for a year.   Nice idea, but can you imagine how many trees we’d need?

If you have an electric car, you can plug in here and get a charge.     For a FEE!

 

  So much for free solar power, huh?

It felt wicked cold yesterday, mostly due to the wind.  Of course there were a few northerners in shorts and t-shirts.

The kids were sure enjoying the games they had in the visitor center. 

There were plenty of manatee hanging out by the warm water discharge areas.  They have built a wonderful overlook area where you can get a good view of the water.

This one loved to lay on her back and chill.  She would float around on her back, turn over once in a while, then be right back on her back again.   Isn’t she cute?

Manatee often turn over and float for a few seconds, but she was unusual staying on her back most of the time.

The Manatee Rescue group was out tagging manatee.

 

An article we read in the paper this morning said that they released a manatee there yesterday (must have been before we got there, darn it).  It had been captured the previous year after suffering from cold stress. It rehabilitated at Lowry Park Zoo.  Sure wish we would have been there for the release.  I wonder if it was Miss Back floater?   She sure seemed to be happy.

There were a lot of manatee there, but with the wind and cold, we didn’t take too much time taking pictures.

Only one was posing for us anyway.  :)

Here is a picture I borrowed from the web showing the concentration of manatee during cold months.

 

This is a more flattering picture of the Florida manatee.  Cute, aren’t they?

We drove over to a nearby nature trail, but unfortunately it was closed for rehabilitation.  It seemed to be poor timing.

 

I’m sure everybody has seen Grumpy Cat”    

Have you seen Grumpy Man?

 

(sorry Al, I couldn’t resist)   This was taken shortly after he had his surgery and he was a bit grumpy.

Kayaking With Manatees

 

Wesley Chapel, Florida  (high 82, low 62)

 

We have been wanting to do some kayaking, and yesterday was the day.  We wanted to paddle on one of the crystal clear rivers in the area, and we chose to go to Crystal River, Florida.

We were hoping now too many tourists would be there this close to Christmas.  Florida draws tourists from all over the world and it seems everybody wants to swim with the manatees.

Crystal River, is about 60 miles north of us and an easy drive up the Suncoast Expressway.  It was a bit chilly in the morning and we were wondering if it would be too cool to be on the water.  We wore shorts, but brought jackets, just in case.

We have a favorite place to launch the kayaks, which gets you very close to the beautiful  Three Sisters Springs, with minimal paddling.  It’s not that we don’t like to paddle, but we just don’t care much for Crystal River.   In our opinion, it’s not the prettiest or most exciting river in Florida, except for the springs.

 

 

There are a lot of places to launch boats in the area.  Manatee swims are very, very popular, so if you want to swim with them, or just take a boat ride to see them, there are numerous places to do so.  You can rent snorkel or scuba gear, kayaks or boats.

Our favorite place to launch is  “A Crystal River Kayak Company.”    It’s right off of the highway at 1332 SE Hwy 19, in Crystal River, Florida.

To look at the place, you would never know there is river access right behind their shop.

They charge $5.00 per kayak to launch, which is a fair price.

We went inside to pay and saw this pretty red inflatable kayak.

We have Sea Eagle Fastrack 385 kayaks, which we love, but we were attracted to this pretty red color.  It would show up nicely in my photos, don’t you think?

We checked it out, because people are always asking us about our Sea Eagle inflatable kayaks.  They are nice, but pricey. I believe they are well over $900 now.   They have redesigned our 385 model and just looking at pictures online, the new ones seem a little too low in the water to me. 

You can get less expensive Sea Eagles for about $300.00, but to us, they are not sturdy enough for serious kayaking. We paddled one, but were not happy with the way they handled. A lot of people love them, but they wouldn’t work for our needs.

Our 385 Fast Track kayaks have a rigid keel,  with a skeg for control and steering, and a hard floor which you can actually stand up in if you want to paddleboard.   If you are interested in the Sea Eagle 385 FT kayaks, click here for my review when we first got our boats a couple years ago. 

If you are interested, we bought our kayaks from Inflatable Boats 4 Less, and have been real happy with the service we received from them. 

 

If you are looking for an inflatable that is a little less expensive, this Cayman II might be something to consider.

It looked to be made very well and was very similar to our Sea Eagles.  If we were in the market for a kayak this would certainly have been up for serious consideration.

It has a rigid bottom like ours, as well as a skeg. 

I asked the lady at the shop about them.  She said she just got it and would be able to sell them at $549.  I explained that we get a lot of questions about our boats and that I write a blog and would post information on the blog, if she wanted me to.

She said she could order the boat and have them shipped anywhere in the country.

We didn’t take the boat for a paddle, so I can’t confirm how it handles, but I would imagine it would be very similar to ours, as it was a very similar style.   The shop website is here.  You can rent kayaks from them also.

 

The down side to an inflatable kayak is that they need to be de-flated after use, which means drying them out and folding them back up after you deflate them.  Since ours has a separate floor (unlike some models) it makes getting them dried off a little more trouble.  The inflation process is pretty quick and much quicker than  the deflation process.

 

Okay, enough about kayaks, and on to the beautiful river.

We launched behind the shop.  You can park very close, so you don’t have to carry the boats very far.

It is set up for ease of getting in and out of the boats.

Since the river flows into the gulf, it is affected by the ocean tides.  (hope I got the effect/affect correct)  Yesterday, it was extreme low tide because of the full moon and I thought we would have to carry our boats in several different areas.  Fortunately, we managed to float over all the low areas, which looked to be 3-4 inches deep.

Once you launch, you have to go down a shallow canal, then underneath a culvert to more canals.

The next picture is deceiving, because of the reflection.  You are actually seeing the complete reflection of the bridge.  We actually paddled right through the center of what looks to be the oval shape of the culvert.

 

Out the other side to another canal.

You can actually see fall foliage, Florida style, as we approach the main part of the river.

Once you get into the main river, it isn’t far until you can see the manatee hangout area near the entrance to the Three Sisters Springs.

Motor boats can’t enter the spring area, so they anchor right outside, anchor and drop off their snorkelers.

There are a lot of manatee in this area during the winter months.  In the summer, manatee stay out in the gulf and Atlantic, but when the ocean waters start getting cold they migrate to the “warm” waters of the springs.   Florida springs are a year round temperature of about 72 degrees.   Some people (like Sherry) might think that’s warm, but let me tell you, it’s pretty chilly to us!    We think 72 degree water calls for a full wetsuit!

There are quite a few boats outside the springs, but they are all very, very cautious and you don’t see any speeding.   Planes fly overhead to keep an eye on both the boaters and the snorkelers.   Harass a manatee and get a ticket.

On the Gulf Coast, they are much less strict than they are on the east coast of Florida.  When we kayaked at Blue Springs (east coast), we got yelled at from a ranger because we stopped to take a picture, and there weren’t even any manatee nearby.   You can’t even stop and “smell the roses.”   I also got yelled at when a manatee swam over to my boat.  I couldn’t back up because there was nowhere to go.   I am all for protecting manatee, but they carry it too far.   Manatee seem to like to interact with people and will frequently come up to your boat, stick their nose out of the water and look at you.  When I’ve been in the water with them, I’ve frequently had them come right up to me like they wanted a belly rub.

You can see from the next picture, that they have a roped off area where people and boats are not allowed.  The manatee can go there to get away from people and take a nap.

The brown shapes you see are manatee.  It was pretty warm out by this time, so many of them were in the river.

 

We decided to head into the springs.  You can see how they prevent boats from entering.  We could barely squeeze in our kayaks.

Once you get past the barricade, you enter a narrow tunnel like area.

The water is very shallow and very clear.  It’s beautiful.

 

Then it opens up to a large “room” like area which is where one of the springs is located.

 

We take our time and enjoy the beauty.

After a while, we head over  to the other two spring areas.  Each is a little different, but each is beautiful.

 

We do more sitting than paddling.

You can see Al really gets comfy.

Most of the manatee seem to hang out outside of the spring area, but you can find an occasional straggler inside.

Yesterday this baby was there.  I worried because I didn’t see his mother anywhere.

This guy from the wild life service, was taking photos.  I assume he will be looking out for this little guy, if he is an orphan.  Manatee are highly endangered and very much loved and cared for in this area. 

We hung out in the spring area for a couple hours, then paddled back out into the river and hung around there for a while longer.

This kid had his own private manatee who seemed to enjoy interacting with him.  

 

He was careful not to touch the manatee, but it was difficult  because the youngster kept swimming right up to him.

The weather was very nice and warm, but when we noticed it starting to get a little cooler, we decided to head back.

It was a lovely day.

the end