 |
| At the Manatee Park |
 |
| This little crab came crawling under the water over to where we were standing, almost as if he were posing. |
 |
| The dolphin were very playful |
Another wonderful sunny warm day. We started our touring by going back to the Manatee Park, by car this time. We did see a few manatee; the warm weather has meant that several of them have already left to go out to the Gulf. This park is across from a power plant, so in the cold weather, the manatee come up here to keep warm. They can't tolerate water temperatures below 69 degrees F. However, there is no food for them in the park area, so they leave on a regular basis to eat, then return to keep warm. Often they leave their young here and go to eat, then return to the warm water. They prefer to return permanently to the Gulf as soon as the water is warm enough. The guide who ran an information session told us that with the cold weather last winter and so far this winter, several hundred manatee have died due to cold stress. Manatee are actually mammals who live in the water, and their closest relative is the elephant. They can stay underwater for 20 minutes, so it is very difficult to catch them coming up for air. We did see several just floating under the surface.Their major predator is man, with our power boats. The poor manatee are often damaged by propellers. Florida has many go slow areas on the waterways to protect the manatee, but not everyone obeys the signs.
We went on to Sanabel Island, where we had lunch at Grandma Dot's, a restaurant at a marina on Sanabel. The fresh grouper was great. We then went to the beach on Sanabel and spent time just walking on the white sand and looking at shells. A pod of dolphins was playing just off the beach, and they put on quite a show for us. The beach was great, it goes on forever. Watched a seagull catch a fish, then be challenged by a pelican who would have really liked to have the fish. Seagull wouldn't give it up though, no matter how much the pelican approached and raised his wings.
We visited West Marine, then drove out to Fort Myers Beach (quite a different place from Fort Myers where we are currently docked). Fort Myers Beach also has a wonderful white sand beach, but also lots of tourist shops. Seems like a very different town that Fort Myers. We will pass Fort Myers Beach as we leave here on Friday.
 |
| The seagull defending his fish from the pelican |
 |
| This is where the manetee hang out, but we also saw a lot of tarpon in there, hard sometimes to be sure what we were looking at. |
 |
Wayne and Nancy on the beach at Sanabel
|
No comments:
Post a Comment