Manatee Viewing Area (near Tampa)

Saturday March 2: My goal….see a Manatee. There is a power plant out of Tampa which is known to have Manatees. We left for our hunt early in the morning. (Our plane was scheduled to leave from Orlando in the afternoon). We got to the location at 8 unfortunately discovered it did not open until 10. We decided to drive and see if we could see them in waterways close by. We found a Reserve with Trails along the waterway. While we hiked the trail, we met a fisherman, who informed us since it was so cold..about 65 degrees… Most of the Manatee’s would be in the warmer water by the power plant. He also highly recommended seeing them there. So back to the viewing area which was now open. We saw many, many Manatee’s. The water temperature was 80, the outdoor temp 65, so they stayed in the water, surfacing only when they needed to to breath. Now that I had seen my Manatees so off to Orlando…
Just an aside…this was the day after the sinkhole swallowed the man in Tampa, just a few miles from where we were.
The trip to Orlando was uneventful. Our plane was a little late leaving Orlando and we had a short lay over in Houston. The lay over became non existent we flew to the next gate and landed in Portland on time Saturday night!
 
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