Today we planned to visit Manatee Springs State Park. This is where the fourth largest natural spring in Florida is. It outputs more than 100 million gallons per day of pure clear water at 72°F. But its other big attraction are the manatee that come up the Suwannee River to winter in the warm spring waters. First we went to where the water bubbles up from under the ground, it is a hole which is about 40 feet deep, you can see to the bottom, and about 60 feet across, surrounded by bald cypress trees it looks very pretty. Then we took the short walk along the stream to where it drains into the Suwannee river. At the mouth of the river there is a viewing platform where you can see the manatee grazing in the clear water. We stood for about half an hour watching 16 manatees swimming up and down. The water is so clear that you can see them very easily. It was a very peaceful and relaxing experience. While we were there there were a number of people asking question of the Rangers. One person asked what you call a group of manatees, such as there was here. The ranger was at a loss and said he did not know. I suggested that you could call them anything you like as they can’t hear you when they are underwater.
After returning to the car we went shopping for food and had a look at the Christmas decorations in Wal-Mart, some of them are very attractive.
We had decided to invite Popeye to dinner with us, but as soon as we came back to the campsite we were ourselves invited to a chicken dinner by the crowd who had made us so welcome. So we have spent a very pleasant evening round the campfire chatting and eating their baked chicken with rice and bean casserole. Once again we are overwhelmed by their hospitality and generosity, although we did manage to entice them into sharing our cherry pie, which we had just bought from Winn-Dixie.
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