Manatees Heart Kayaks

When my son graduated from high school I looked for a new hobby to replace him...well, not really...but at first I threatened to get a dog. Some friends and I decided to buy kayaks since we lived in Florida near Cocoa Beach and had great weather nearly year-round. My son's wind-surfing instructor recommended a Heritage 12' Featherlite due to its incredible stability and good tracking, and I bought a Yakima rack for my car with Hully Rollers and a saddle. My yak only weighs 48 pounds; this way I can load and unload by myself, which meant I would use it more. I had only had my kayak a few days and decided to go out alone on the Indian River Lagoon. It's fairly shallow, brackish water with sandy beaches, lots of mangroves, and the occasional dolphin. At any rate, after I had put in, I noticed a large gray rock off my port side. Not wanting to scratch my new paddle, I carefully avoided it. Suddenly, WHOOOMP!! a huge tail the size of a coffee table came out of the water, drenching me. The rock was a manatee sticking out of the water! Thinking this rogue manatee was in hot pursuit, I paddled my little arms off till I reached the safety of a canal lined with expensive homes and hid out among one of their docks. Silly me! The manatee must have been as scared of me as I was of it. Nonetheless, after I finished my paddle, I kept a sharp eye out as I made my way back to my car. Of course, by then it was probably a mile or two down the lagoon.

My next encounter with a manatee came a week or so later. My friends and I decided to try a park several miles north of where I was "attacked." Again, the ground was very sandy and clean with lots of mangroves surrounding the waters. This particular park (just off Pine Island Road) is almost directly across from a power plant at Port St. John, which as you may know, attracts manatees in colder weather. Not long after we had put in and were having a great time making fun of our lack of skills, I felt a large bump hit my kayak. Having more guts than during my last encounter, I eased up paddling and looked around. There he was, but he didn't get too close to my yak again. I kept a sharp eye out nonetheless as we paddled out into the Banana River. On the way back to where we had put in, however, there was a huge roiling, boiling of water. I think the manatees were either playing water polo...or something else was happening. We politely averted our eyes and went back to our cars.

Anyway, if you're interested in having a close encounter with a manatee, there is a wonderful viewing area at what is called the Old Haulover Canal north of Kennedy Space Center. And if you're not a paddler or don't have the time, there is a little park just north of the canal where you can walk to a dock down close to the water. And in conclusion, most of my narrative has been in past tense because I now live in Tennessee where I enjoy kayaking on eleven freshwater lakes in Fairfield Glade. Oh, we also play a lot of golf here...