Manatee Park

After checking the location, that it was open (there had been so much destruction we realized we couldn't take anything for granted) and that there were Manatee there, we set off again.

Selfie with a Manatee statue.

 Manatee Park is a seasonal location for viewing non-captive Florida manatees in Lee County.  Manatees visit the park in search of warm water during the cooler days in winter when the temperature in the Gulf of Mexico is below 68° F (20° C).  The warm water in the Manatee Park canal comes from the Florida Power and Light Power Plant across the street and is created as a byproduct of cooling off their equipment. From the website.
 

The park was free but we had to pay for parking. 

A woman at a table by the entrance told us that the best viewing was by the fishing pier, so that's where we headed.

 

The spillway from the power plant enters the river at the fishing pier

and the water was over 90 degrees. Manatee should be happy with that.

It wasn't easy to get pictures of them. Just their nostrils would break the surface and you would hear a little snort. Their back might show for a short period and then they would sink below the surface again.

We had seen that you could rent a kayak but we decided to go and see the situation before doing that. As we watched people kayaking on the river, one girl suddenly screamed and nearly tipped out of here canoe. She may have hit a Manatee with her paddle or one came up below her but I knew, there was no way I was getting Cyndy into a kayak after that. 

They could be seen as brown shadows in the water and sometimes you could see the scars from propellers slicing their back. We watched them surface, roll, wave flippers, flip their tails and eat at the mangroves lining the river. However catching any of that on our phones proved illusive.

We walked up the power plant slipway

There were a few more along there and we watched for a while. You can clearly see the battle scar on this one.

We walked back to the entrance past this huge Southern Live Oak.

Back to the entrance

where the woman at the table had some Manatee bones. She let us hold a cow rib and a Manatee rib. The Manatee's was about 4 times heavier, to help them sink to the bottom.

Really hungry we drove to a nearby Tiki Bar

and shared coconut shrimp and crab cakes

while admiring the huge boats and

watching the lift bridge.

 The next day was a lazy one as it rained and thunderstormed. Time to read a book and paint the house.

 Then today, my last day here..

another trip to the market. (Bought Key Lime Pie this time!)