Goodbye Manatees in Pelican Bay

November 20, 2013

 

After anchoring for almost two weeks in Pelican Bay (near Cayo Costa State Park), we are heading further south today.  We had planned to leave tomorrow morning, but since the entrance into Pelican Bay is quite skinny (shallow), and low tide is around 8:00 AM, we have decided to leave the anchorage today near high tide and anchor just off the intra-coastal waterway near Useppa Island.  Tomorrow, we will go about 30 miles down Pine Island Sound and anchor just off Punta Rassa for the night.  Friday, we plan to sail to Marco Island, where we will dock and ‘enjoy’ a few days of cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping and other errands. 

 

One of the highlights of our stay has been the manatees that are in the lagoon near the anchorage.  In previous stays, we had never really visited the lagoon much, and when we did, we didn’t see too many manatees.  This year, there must have been at least ten of them, including a mum with her baby.  We found that a good way to see them was to turn the outboard off as we entered the lagoon and row from there.  One day, we had two of them that were following us closely and at times nudging the boat.  We do not feed wildlife, nor do we give manatees fresh water, so we initially we thought that they only wanted food and wouldn’t stick around when they saw that we didn’t have any to offer.  But, they hovered around the boat for 20 – 30 minutes.  They were close enough that we both had a chance to touch one of their heads, and both accidently touched them with the oars that we were using.  Another day, we drifted right up to the mum and her baby, and the mum hit the dinghy as it dove down under the water.  Even when they were less interested in our visits, we were normally surrounded with manatees within 50 feet of the dinghy.  They do move very slowly, and we hope they stay safe as they migrate to their winter homes.  Pelican Bay is a slow-speed manatee zone from April 1 through November 15^th, but they were still here yesterday, so they will need to keep an extra ear out for motors approaching.

 

Last year, we saw a lot of white pelicans who stopped either overnight or for a few days during their migration south, but this year, we’ve only seen a couple of small transient groups of them.

 

Joyce

Anchored Pelican Bay (Cayo Costa Island)