February 2…. Blue Springs

We visited Blue Springs State Park today.

As we drove up, there was a line of cars waiting to get in the gate. A LONG line. What the heck, we’re here, and we’re retired. Get in line.

As we drove down the road, looking for the end of the line, it became clear just how long that line really was. A half mile later, we found the end and joined the queue. 😳

Fortunately it was moving along at a slow but steady pace. Only took us about 30-40 minutes to get back to the gate and into the park, and then we luckily found a place to park rather quickly.

Don’t all these people have jobs and schools to go to?? 😡

Anyway, WHY are all these people here?? Same reason we are (so I can only complain a little bit), manatee!!

Blue springs is the winter home of hundreds of manatees. And with the latest cold snap hitting Central Florida, they are crowding into the (relatively) warm water from the springs.

The daily count, from the mouth of the run at the St John’s River, and heading up the run to the Blue Springs was over 900 manatee!!

Big ones, small ones, tiny (200 lb) babies. The water was filled with them. Up stream and down, they were swimming all over the place or just lying on the bottom sleeping, coming up every ten to twenty minutes to grab a breath and then drop back to sleep.

And in between all the manatee, there were vast schools of fish. Gar, catfish, pacu (a vegetarian version of a piranha) and thousands and thousands of BIG tilapia (a non-native species). Tilapia has made its way into seafood restaurants in the last few years, and I think there were enough just in that one spot to have a fish fry for everyone this side of the Mississippi!

No swimming with them this time, we plan to do that again next week, but it was fun just to watch them from the docks.