West Coast Weekend Excursion

Thankfully there's much more to Florida than just Miami.

The past weekend we headed to Central Florida's West Coast with good friends Art and Adele. Our goal - to explore the area and to catch a glimpse of Florida's strangest creature, the elusive manatee (or sea cow) - we found this animal to be slightly ridiculous and I cannot imagine how it managed NOT to become extinct during the past 100 years (Pic below)!

But it wasn't all about the manatees -

we found it within ourselves to visit some of Florida's 600 springs, photograph ancient Indian burial mounds, eat local cuisine, and explore the Central West Coast.

We found some breathtaking scenery, drove through ancient forests with giant old oaks, slept in a town called Homosassa - which is right next to the blooming town of Weeki Wachi (population = 900), experienced the serene sunsets of the West Coast - and we saw our manatee(s)!

Unbeknown to us, along the dreamy riversides scallop season has dawned on this part of Florida and every hotel, motel, RV, camping spot and boat was booked. "A whole beanload of good that did us!", as one local lady told me.

Scallop season is preceded by tarpin season - Homosassa is after all known as the Tarpin Capital of the world. Completing the rest of the year - preceding tarpin season - is manatee season! Although you cannot hunt these gentle creatures - there is only 3000 left alive.

The gentle manatee is the slowest, dumbest animal I've seen. Sarah was convinced that God had some leftover clay and this was what He made after all the other animals were already made. They are closely related to elephants, and each female only has one cub once every three years.

Which sucks for them, because it is estimated that by 2020 there will only be 200 left, the rest being killed by boat propellers, poachers, decease and getting lost at sea!

The whole area is beautiful and rich in ancient Indian history, the remnants of their villages still visible today. (Pic above: Climbing an Indian burial mount at Crystal Spring State Park.)

We swam and snorkeled in some fantastic springs with opaque, see-through water.

We had a grand old time.