Marineland, FL

13 April 2015

They are real! We met them in person. After talking to the crew of Chamba on the radio, we got to meet them. We decided to get pumped out since we had missed the bridge opening. While we were there they slid up to the dock. “Hey Quo Vadimus!!” The are very nice people. We said we’d try to meet up a marina up the ICW where we could sit and chat.

Weather the last few days has been rain in the afternoon so we are trying to be at a dock around 1 PM.

The ride up the ICW was nice, it goes from wilderness to houses and back again. Still not sure what’s up with boaters on the ICW. It’s a closed area like a river and we’ve been good about giving people a slow pass. Wish the guy in the Mainship had done that when he went by. He managed to break Susan’s wineglass from Manistique, MI. Sigh. We tried on the radio, but for some reason these idiots don’t have their radio’s on. He went up a few miles and came back. Both of us yelled and waved, he just waved when he went by. Double Sigh.

We were on the lookout for manatees, we had seen them on our last 4 travel days. There were some dolphins on thje way but no manatees.

About noon the sky got dark and there was thunder and lightning on the horizon. I was hoping to get to the marina before we got drenched. But there was a snout, it was a manatee. We slowed and drifted up, our momentum kept us going at his pace. But he decided that he was done with us and with a wave of his tail he was gone.

We got to the dock about 10 minutes before the sky opened up, so that part worked out well.

After naps and dinner we went for a short walk to Marineland. This is one of the earliest dolphin places, they have been around for 75 years. Susan had been there in her 20′s but they have done some updates since then. It was closed and we walked around it to the beach. Next door was a block long raised board walk with a huge parking area. Not sure what it would have been in a prior life.

On our dock was “Kilt Drifter”, Loopers from Washington State, but had purchased a boat in Alabama. We chatted for awhile, they are staying for a day to go to the grocery store.

Tuesday will be a short day, 15 miles to St. Augustine.