Manatee in Crystal River

Apparently, something I didn't know, was that the West Indian Manatee has called the gulf coast it's home. It's a very common sight to be walking around town, along the water, and seeing groups of manatee basking in the afternoon sunlight.



(They travel in pods, which is a large group of manatee, that you can see on the right)

Manatee are Herbivores (like me!) In an aquarium, it's common to see the manatee being fed lettuce, but here in the wild they mostly just munch on sea grass, freshwater plants, and other algae.
The manatees can be found in the warm waters of shallow rivers, bays, estuaries, and coastal rivers.



Numerous times upon watching the manatee, I have seen them "playing" in the water. They'll do barrel rolls and sometimes I've even seen younger manatee swim after one another. They are generally very (extremely) huge animals, and they tend to move rather slow. These gentle and cute manatees can weight up to 1,000 lbs or more, and are an average of 10+ ft. long! The females, quite surprisingly enough, are actually bigger than the males. It's uncommon to see them out of the water, but occasionally the manatee will swim to the top, exposing their nose to the surface to inhale air, before going back down.

Manatee Springs State Park, FL

We've officially left and moved away from Georgia, which means I am happy yet very, very sad. :(
but nonetheless, life shall continue to move on, as it always does. quite frankly.
















Our stop for this weekend was Manatee Springs State Park, which is located in Chiefland, Florida! I unfortunately got sick a few days before moving here, to the point where I couldn't breathe through my noes, my eyes were pink, my head hurt, my throat hurt, and my body was weak.

Which is odd, because I eat like a rabbit. I am super duper healthy and nothing fights down the walls of my immune system! Or at least, not usually, so when I suddenly became sick this suckkkeed.



The first day we arrived at the state park, I just slept, and when I wasn't sleeping I was watching supernatural and eating soup. I was a mess. We also had no wifi, internet, water, or television here. (At least we had electricity!)







Something I loved most about this place was how our campsite was literally dead center in the woods, right in the trees. We're surrounded by birds and forest and deer and that just makes me so incredibly happy.





Also, hence "manatee springs", the park has numerous outlets to the ocean-fed river, which is currently home to tons and tons of manatee at the moment.

The water is over 70 degrees year round and is perfect for swimming! (I can see why the manatee are currently living in these waters) not to mention how crystal clear it is, you can see every fish in this water! How awesome!





The next day, after taking a long hot shower and blowing my nose a few dozen times, I was finally able to make it out the house, despite the fact I felt so sick, I just couldn't miss this day.

The sun was shining and the air was nice and cool. Dad and I went for a walk on the wooden bridge, it goes for almost a mile through the woods, and is alongside the water.














We happened across a hawk, and got very close to it, which is the highlight of my life right there because I mean how often do you get this close to a hawk and snap such an amazing picture.

I loved seeing all of the different animals - such as turtles, manatees, butterflies, hawks, squirrels, blackbirds, fish, and the list goes on.