Until now!
In the winter the waters of the gulf are too cold for the manatee's. So they search for warmer places...like the canal at the Electric Plant in Fort Myers. Hundreds of manatees gather here every winter. So there is an actual park there with an observation area , an information booth and gift shop,and path's to walk, and picnic tables.
When we found out some of our home school friends were planning a field trip...we just had to go. If we had gone back in December or January there would have been a lot more of them, because it was so cold. But even now there were plenty of them hanging out.
Nick went absolutely crazy with excitement when he first saw some...a mother and a calf. He loved it! The water was not exactly crystal clear...so you could only see them when they came up for breath. I tried sooooo hard to get photo's but I was too slow and never got a good shot.
Our leader had set up a guided tour. So we ended up in a little pavilion learning all about manatee's and even holding some manatee bones!
One of the fun learning activities they did was to see how much a manatee weighs. They brought kids up one at a time and asked what they weighed, and then they kept adding more and more kids until they reached the weight of a manatee. You can see Nicholas on the left a the head of the manatee cutout.
When we'd had our fill of manatee watching we headed over to the picnic area to enjoy our lunch.
Wow! How neat...I would have loved to see the manatees! Your kids are really growing up fast.
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