Manatees and Mermaids

It was nippy out when we got up this morning: 37 degrees.  As we travel north, it’s just gonna get worse.  Good thing we are well stocked on propane.

Today’s destination was Weeki Wachee State Park, site of the deepest freshwater cave system in the country.  But, unlike many other springs here in Florida, you can’t get very close to this spring because it is nearly surrounded by the underwater theater where a show by live mermaids is put on a couple times a day.  The mermaids can swim in the spring, but us ordinary landlubbers can only look at it through thick glass from a room eight feet below the water’s surface.

Our interest was more on the spring run, a super-clear river which is a very popular place for kayakers.  We had to make reservations to put our kayaks on the water and, when we did so, many of the time slots were full.  The state allows 70 watercraft to be launched per hour and we couldn’t get in until 11:30.  So we made our 11:30 appointment and ended up arriving just under two hours early.  We could always take in the state park while waiting

When we got there, the parking lot was nearly deserted.  I’m not sure why many of the earlier time slots were sold out.  Maybe they just had a 95% no-show rate.

I asked at the desk about launching before our reserved time.  The gal said that would not be a problem so we ended up getting on the river at just before 10:30.  Beats waiting around for another hour.  We had already spotted a bicycle at Rogers Park, about 5.5 miles downstream, so we were ready to go.

Turns out there were very few people on the river and the cool, sunny morning made for a fantastic trip.  This river gets very deep in spots which made the blue and green colors very vivid in the sunlight.

This river has a decent current so we just drifted along for quite a while, paddling only to maintain direction.  A very delightful paddle with perfect weather.  Couldn’t have asked for anything better.

One of the highlights was a few manatee we floated over.  They were unconcerned with our passing, even when we passed quite close.  One even bumped my kayak as it slowly moved upriver.

It took us about three hours to paddle the 5.5 miles of river.  The last two miles of river were outside the state park, so there were lots of large vacation homes right on the river’s edge.  The water was considerably cloudier here but we still managed to spot a couple more manatees.

We took out at Rogers Park and I biked back to get the RV.  We then debated on what to do next.  We saw that the mermaid show at the state park started in 20 minutes and, since we were already here...

We arrived at the underwater theater just a few minutes before the show started.  The show was a rendition of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen.  Despite initially having the feel of kitsch, the show was well done and all done underwater with the actors using breathing tubes.

We strolled around the state park for a bit after the show.  We missed the last boat ride of the day.  The water park was closed.  The animal adventure section was closed.  It looks like this park exists primarily because of the mermaid show.

It took us about an hour to get to our reserved campsite: Potts Preserve.  Another Water Management District campground, this one is primitive, a little hard to find, but free.  When we came in we discovered most of the campground was occupied by large horse trailers and what looked like some equine gathering.  We found a spot a little distance away and parked for the night.

I made a video set to music with some of the footage I took today.  Created for Alex, our grandson, it features manatees.