Dance After Dark Photography

Alternate title: In which we almost hit a manatee

I stayed in Patty’s spare bedroom Saturday night so we could head out bright & early Sunday morning. We didn’t quite make the early, but it was awful bright. I think we made it to Cape Canaveral at about 9:30. Our destination was the Haulover Canal, which runs between Mosquito Lagoon and the Indian River Lagoon. We put in and headed east through the Canal, which took us into Mosquito Lagoon.

I wasn’t prepared for just how big the lagoon is, and I was surprised at how shallow much of it seemed to be. Once we were past the main boat channel, the bottom was clearly visible less than 3 feet away. The hardest part was paddling around and through the occasional clumps of sea grass. Once we were into the flats of the eastern lagoon, we saw numerous cormorants and herons. Patty put her paddle away and brought out her camera. With patience and careful, quiet paddle strokes we were able to get quite close to some of the great blue herons. Heading back, we got within about 15 feet of several cormorants roosting on the shore of a little island.

Up to that point I was enjoying myself, but I was also a little disappointed. In the warm summer months, this is supposed to be a prime manatee and dolphin viewing area. Well, heading back through the canal I found out that all the reviews and stories were right. Just as we were passing the observation deck on the east side of Haulover Canal Bridge, I saw a large rock suddenly surface ahead of us. Of course, the “rock” was the back of a huge manatee. I had to brake hard to the left so we wouldn’t hit him at ramming speed. Instead, we came up broadside and stopped about 3 inches from him. The noise and the close encounter startled him, so he rolled and dove. His tail must have been about 3 feet across. I don’t know how big that makes the rest of him, but he looked very big from just a few inches away. We followed alongside him for a minute, but we left quickly because it was apparent we were disturbing him.

Just as we were about to take out again, we saw a dorsal fin rise up out of the water. If was about 30 feet offshore, next to a rock where two kids were fishing. At first the Jaws theme song came into my head, but when it surfaced to breathe I saw that it was a dolphin. (Maybe a porpoise. I vaguely know the difference, but I didn’t get a great look.) Patty and I stopped within a few feet of the rock to watch the dolphin swimming around. We saw just how powerful he was when he started chasing fish, leaving a deep furrow in his wake and darting in all kinds of crazy directions. When he moved further south to the other side of the canal, we decided to call it a day.

We did a lot of sitting and watching, especially when we stopped to terrorize the crabs on the east side of the lagoon. I’ll definitely go back to this spot. There’s much, much more to see. As long as the water is smooth, I could see myself spending an entire day between the two lagoons. All in all, I’d say we covered about 5.5 miles in just under 4 hours. Fitlinxx says that’s 2,236 calories burned. I’m definitely feeling it in my shoulders and abdomen today!

Trackback URI | Comments RSS