Manatee mating herd

WOW!!!!! I went kayaking this morning with Lisa (m/v Reel Lucky) and we always seem to have a good time talking and just communing with nature, but this morning we saw something neither of us has ever seen before. Lisa was out on the water by ‘Bird Island’ waiting for me and watched a large number of manatees (10 – 15) swimming right towards her heading for the edge of the island. That in itself was pretty cool since we usually only see one or two at a time. By the time I got out there the manatees had reached the shallows and were in a huge pile and I mean HUGE. We paddled pretty close and got a few pictures. I even had one manatee come right up to the kayak and stick its snout out of the water and look at me – I could have touched it had I not had the camera in my hands. I had heard it is mating season, but didn’t know about mating herds. Came back by the island on our way back to the boats, about 1 1/2 hours later and the ‘pile’ was still in the same place, then broke up abruptly with lots of thrashing and splashing. Glad we weren’t close when that started!

According to the ‘Save the Manatee’ organization this pile generally consists of one female and a dozen or more males. The female swims into shallow water trying to get away from the males. The female is ‘in heat’, so to speak, for up to 3 weeks and the herd will stay with her for the duration.

‘Bird Island’ is a very small bump in the water covered with mangroves and home to hundreds of Pelicans, several species of Herons and Ibis’. It is also breeding season for these birds and since I’ve never seen baby Pelicans I have been watching them with a great deal of interest. The adult Pelicans seem to keep the very young ones covered up and I’ve had to sit there for quite a while just to get a peek at them. They are all getting pretty big now and are fuzzy and white – not grey like the adults. Cute, cute, cute. Got some pictures of them this morning.

Last weekend we saw hundreds of ‘cow nosed rays’ out in the river. There were so many of them that the color of water appeared to be brown.  You guessed it – mating season for them too.  No pictures – sorry.


And that concludes today’s lesson on local wildlife.

GETTING READY TO SAY GOODBYE TO NEW SMYRNA BEACH

I’ve gotten a few reminders that we have a blog and I am not holding up my end of the bargain to keep you ‘informed’ - sorry. 

It’s almost time to say goodbye to New Smyrna Beach. Sadly, our time here is quickly coming to an end. We certainly have settled in and are quite comfortable. We have been here long enough that we are referred to as regulars in some of the places we go.

Living in a marina is pretty good. I should probably say at this point that it has been idyllic until a couple of weeks ago when the ‘local’ kids got out of school and began looking for something to do. There have been two dinghies, two bikes, numerous bicycle seats and all the lights and ringy-dingy bells stolen (off bicycles). One dinghy was recovered by the owner only because the thieves stole it during broad daylight and someone happened to see it going up the river, but the kids weren’t caught with it in their possession.

It looks like this entry to the blog is just going to be a hodgepodge of random thoughts about things around here and y’all know that I can ramble on with the best of them and not say much.

We’ve gotten some more of our projects crossed off ‘The List’ – man I love to cross things off!!! The only problem is that for every one we complete and cross off there are two more added – how does that happen??

It is pretty warm here and the a/c runs continuously. 'Salty Dog' has her summer dress on now. We’ve never used this awning, but don’t know what we would do without it now that we've discovered what a difference it makes. Thanks Dick & Judy  – we love it!!!!


Last Sunday Jeff’s brother and my sister (Mindy & Carl), brought their boat over here and we went out in the ocean several miles so Carl could feed the fish. We saw 4 or 5 large sea turtles and several stingrays – that was pretty cool. Came back in and stopped for a few hours at a place the locals call 'Disappearing Island', which is exactly what most of it does at high tide. It is a very busy place on the weekends and you can only get there by boat. It was estimated that on Memorial weekend there were 1000 boats out there, but I’m not sure I believe that, even though it is quite large. It is amazing how much stuff some people bring out there with them. There is all the usual stuff – umbrellas, fold-up canopies, chairs, grills, games of all kinds, but we came upon two groups that were noteworthy. I wish we’d had a camera. The first group had all the usual stuff and lots of it, as well as their own homemade portable bar – what a hoot! The framework was 2 inch PVC pipe with 90 degree fittings and couplers, none of which were glued together, just pressed in place. The frame was probably 6 – 8 feet long x 2 feet wide. The top of the bar was a piece of plywood that was rounded off to match the frame – a hole cut in the middle to accommodate the large beach umbrella that was being held in place with a 5 gallon bucket filled with beach sand. There were about 6 people leaning on the bar as though they were at the local pub - hey, gotta get your priorities straight. Mindy then pointed out that you have to break everything down and haul it off in the afternoon when it’s time to leave and haul it all away in a BOAT. I bet those people made two or three trips. The second group didn’t have the ‘usual’ stuff, but had a large hard plastic slide on a wooden frame. The slide was about 6 feet tall or so. The kids and dog were having a wonderful time being lifted up to the top so they could slide into the water. Don’t know how they got the slide there, as they didn’t seem to have a boat big enough to do so.

New Smyrna is home to one of the oldest Dairy Queen’s – bet you didn’t know that did you? It looks like DQ did back in the 60’s.


 

This is a picture of a McDonald’s (as if you couldn’t tell) in NSB as well – it also looks very much like the one I remember going to as a kid. Just thought I would share these pictures with you.


OK – I guess I’ve rambled on for long enough - gotta save something for the next time!