Monroe Harbour Marina, Sanford, Florida

We have reached the beautiful city of Sanford, on Monroe Lake. This is as far south as we can come on the St. Johns River, from here we will point our nose northward and head for home.
Left Hontoon Island State Park this morning, cooler this morning, water was very still with mist rising off the water. Travelled just over 20 miles, and most of the way was no wake zone for manatee, so we did not travel fast. The sun was shining, and we saw many alligators of all sizes sunning themselves on logs and stumps along the way, as well as a few swimming in the water. Also many large birds, cormorants drying their wing, osprey in nests along the way, many others whose names we don't know. In one place we had read that there are self-appointed monitors for speed and wakes; we met one of them. He motioned for us to slow down; we were already at idle speed and I checked, we were making no wake. He was making motions for reading and listening, then shouted "Can't you read?". Not sure what he wanted us to do, if we had gone any slower we would have been stopped.
As we got here to the marina, the wind got up a bit, but this is well protected, so docking was not a problem. However, this part of water has been very dry and water levels are down, so water in the marina seems shallow. Saw a speed boat aground just outside the marina, he was very much on the wrong side of the markers and looked like he wanted help, but there was no way we could approach him without going aground ourselves. He did get free after a little while. Got into the marina and there was an alligator swimming around in the bay in front of the boats. People here said that a few days ago, there were several manatee in here, I'm hoping they are still here. We thought we had shad flies the past few days, apparently they are somthing called blind mosquitoes. They do not bite, but they do leave a mess on the boat. The guy here at the marina said that they lay their eggs on the bottom of the lake, and when the water is low, the sun hits the bottom and they hatch. Guess that has just happened, because they are thick.

The view off the front of the boat this morning

alligator swimming just off the dock here at the marina

There are several gold loopers who keep their boats here, some live in the northern US and go home for the summer, others live here on their boats. They seem to be a very friendly bunch of people. Many have stopped by to welcome us and ask if we need anything, and just to chat about the loop. Went for a walk around town this afternoon, picked up a few groceries. Will do a bigger shopping trip tomorrow, as well as laundry. We will probably leave here on Friday.

Can't get much more relaxed than this