Kayaking With the Manatees

We have arrived.  Today’s travel was exactly 100 miles and the end of it is a grassy campsite at the Florida Baptist Encampment, a youth camp located near the small town of Mascotte, about 45 minutes west of Orlando.  We’ll have to reconnoiter once we have some more daylight tomorrow and discover what this area is all about, but a couple of short walks in the growing darkness revealed only a few puddles of water.  We’re supposed to be nearly completely surrounded by the Palatlakaha River, but so far we haven’t found any of it.  This whole area seems to be one big swamp, so maybe this river doesn’t have any actual open water and this “island” that we’re allegedly on is only imaginary.  We’ll see...

Since we didn’t have far to go today, we opted to spend some time at Silver Springs State Park, near Ocala, Florida.  This has been an extremely popular destination since the 1870’s, as it is one of the largest artesian springs in the US and boasts very clear water.  A popular thing to do here is to take a glass-bottom boat tour, but since we had our own kayaks along, we paddled around on our own time and enjoyed the waterway

This parks popularity is evidenced by the size of the parking lot, it is absolutely enormous.  But we were there on a Friday morning, so it wasn’t as busy as it probably is during the weekends.

We launched our kayaks and paddled around the Fort King waterway and the Silver River, a loop of about a mile and a half.  It was a delightful paddle and the weather was perfect for this, sunny and in the low 70’s.  After making sure that my phone was indeed waterproof, I dunked it underwater several times to take some pictures and video clips.

We managed to see a few alligators along the shoreline, and also some yellow bellied slider turtles, several species of birds, and several manatees.

We met a couple of river patrol volunteers, who we talked with at some length about the area.  One of them, when he found out we were from Michigan, asked us if we lived in the UP.  “I love the UP,” he told us. “I go there every chance I get.”  We’ve had several people ask us if we live in the UP when they find out we are from Michigan.  Why assume the UP?  There are so few people there that you have a much better chance of being right by asking someone if they live in the lower peninsula.  My guess is that these people don’t gamble. They play the odds all wrong.

We spent a couple hours on the water, enjoying the day and the wildlife and the river.  As we were paddling back towards the launch point, I saw a large object pass directly under Deb’s kayak.  I told her that she just ran over a manatee.  We turned around and followed it for a bit, taking a few pictures and watching this creature that was larger than our kayaks.

The shadow of the Great Swamp Monster
(actually, that's my kayak shadow on the river bottom)

Mr. Gator on the shore

The manatee can be seen just below and in front of Deb's kayak

The same manatee seen from underwater

We left the state park and drove towards our final destination, the Florida Baptist Encampment.  On the way, we drove past The Villages, a massive retirement community in central Florida.  One of the forums I frequent has people that talk a lot about The Villages.  We drove one of the main roads in one section of The Villages for a while before turning around.  The residential roads were all gated, but quite a bit could be seen from the main road.  I imagine this place may be just the ticket if you like golf or pickle ball or lounging around in the lanai.  Nice place, but I can’t see myself living here.

We arrived at the camp right around dinner time.  We met a some of the SOWER couples and will meet the rest at our first meeting tomorrow at 10am.  Until then everyone is just hanging out doing their own thing.