meandering our way into north FL...

We left Columbus on Friday morning and went to FL. I'd been industriously promoting a trip to Edward Ball State Park, just south of Tallahassee for weeks, trying my best to get someone to want to go with me: dangling the idea of a tourist-y little trip down the river in a glass-bottomed boat. Sadly: no such luck. We did get on the boat, but the ones that you could peer over into the hole and see stuff on the bottom was not an option, due to murky water.

I was so very annoyed - as I had actually done my own research this time, and was really looking forward to the opportunity to see all that stuff that lives underwater. The guy who sold us the tickets reported that recent rains had caused the water to be so cloudy they would not take the other boats out.  I suspect experience has proven that if they were to sell the tickets for the bottom viewing, and tourists could not see through the murky water, they would be doing a lot of explaining, to say nothing of refunding. I was really sad, and had so looked forward to peering down through the glass to see fishes, turtles, and whatever else there might be lurking in the spring fed river.

Our guide, who was extremely difficult to understand, reported that some unbeliveable quantity of water pours forth out of the spring - was it 6,000 gallons a minute? Holy Cow! Bubbling up to form the Wakulla River, and running into the Gulf of Mexico. Surprisingly the only part of that natural wonder that is protected is the part within the bounds of the park - only about two miles from the source. So anyone who wants to jump in, fish, boat, be enviornmentally incorrect, can do whatever they can get away with in the miles between the park boundary and the Gulf twenty-three miles to the south.

We saw fishing birds: pelicans, anhingas, coots, marsh hens, egrets, plenty of fishes, quite a few alligators - looking much blacker than I remember them to be. And, surprising to me, a number of manatees. I don't know if the fact that the guide said the water is almost always 70 degrees is a factor, but I did not expect to see the 'sea cows' so far north. Though I had read they like a warmer temperature, and were often found in Crystal River, just north of Tampa/St Pete area, it just did not occur to me that they would be in N. FL as well. Aren't they endangered due to mishaps with boat motors? And just being slow moving and not terribly bright?

Though we were surprised to see the manatees, what we really were wishing for is mermaids. I remember reading someplace about a theory that the early sailors in the New World possibly thought that the sea cows were mermaids. If so they had definitely, decidedly been at sea far too long. Still trying to get to Weeki-Watchee, where we Know there are Mermaids.