Friday January 8th 2024

Today warmed up quickly into the mid seventies after a cool start near fifty. The sun was out all day. Overnight and tomorrow morning another cold front arrives with lots of rain. The weather is on a roller coaster with a lots of steep climbs and quick drops.

While I was out exploring the area today, I found myself a little southeast of Tampa. I decided to take advantage of the location and go a little further south to the Tampa Electric Company Manatee viewing facility in Apollo Beach. Since it was a cold night there were lots of manatees taking advantage of the warm discharge water from the power plant.

I have been to the facility several times, but the last time was in 2019. They were closed during the COVID years and I wasn’t in the area during the cold months last year. Since my last visit they have expanded the facility a great deal. There is a new building near the overflow parking lot with new trails to the manatee viewing facility about a half a mile away. At the manatee view area along the canal to the power plant they have upgraded the boardwalks and added a new section of pier into the canal.

Today there were dozens of manatee in the canal. I would guess there were more than one hundred, but I only counted to twelve a couple of times before giving up. As you watch they gracefully move below the surface and pop their heads up too breath every few minutes. Once in awhile a manatee will come well out of the water showing lots of back before diving showing its tail as it dives.

I really enjoyed the viewing today. There were more manatee visible than I usually see. The new trails, facilities and landscaping were also nice to see. Many other people were there to see the manatees today. The overflow parking lot might well have overflowed at some point today. All of the kids out of school and along with the snowbirds combined with a nice day that started off cold made a near perfect storm of visitors.

Back at the campground this afternoon the park filled up for the weekend. There are a number of groups of friends on adjoining sites as well as lots of campers with kayaks for exploring the river. The day use area and trails weren’t as busy as they were earlier in the week, but I imagine they may be tomorrow and Sunday. The Great Blue Heron was in about the same place as the last couple of days.