You hear them before you see them. On Sunday morning at Blue Spring, just after 7, the fog over the spring run was so thick that the water disappeared about ten feet out from the boardwalk. Then, out of the white, came a slow, wet "pffff." Then another, closer. Nico grabbed my sleeve and whispered, "Somebody's breathing." It was a manatee coming up for air, and there were a few hundred more where it came from.
Why Blue Spring in February
Blue Spring State Park is in Orange City, about four hours north of us, where a spring feeds a short, clear run into the St. Johns River. The spring stays around 73 degrees all year. When the river cools off in winter, manatees crowd into the run to stay warm, and from mid-November to mid-March the park closes the spring to swimming so they have it to themselves. You go to watch, not to swim, and the boardwalk along the run is the best seat in the house.
Presidents' Day weekend is the one weekend of baseball season that's ours. Our head coach doesn't schedule anything over the holiday, Dana traded one shift, and we drove up Saturday morning for two nights.
The day-use parking lot was full by mid-morning both days, and the ranger at the gate told us they'd been turning cars away. Camping inside the park meant we were already there. That alone made the campsite worth it.
Fog on the boardwalk
Our site sat under live oaks with Spanish moss hanging nearly to the tent. Shade, bugs, bathroom: plenty of shade, no bugs at all, and a bathroom close enough. Dana gave it a nine.
The best hours were early. Cold air sitting on warm spring water makes fog, and at dawn the whole run steams. We walked the boardwalk at 7 both mornings, café con leche in the white enamel mugs for Dana and me and hot cocoa in theirs for the kids. By 9 the fog had burned off and you could see down into the water: gray backs lined up in the run like parked cars, mothers with calves tucked in close, a few lying still on the bottom.
Maya spent a long time at one viewing platform with her nature journal, drawing a manatee with three white scars across its back. A volunteer told her the staff tell individual manatees apart by their scar patterns, most of them from boat propellers. Maya wrote that down and underlined it twice. On the drive home she asked whether scientists who study manatees and scientists who study sea turtles ever get to work on the same boat.
We also walked up to the old Thursby House on its rise above the run, and Nico assembled a collection of oak leaves that was confiscated at the tent door due to volume.
Cold toes and a tent that never dried
Saturday night dropped to about 43. After Long Pine Key we had the warm-bottle routine down for the kids, and they slept fine. The trouble was on the grown-up side. Sometime after midnight our queen air mattress started a slow leak, and by 3 a.m. Dana and I were lying with our hips on the tent floor and the cold coming straight up through it. Dana's toes didn't warm up until her second café con leche. That's the third air mattress we've lost in two camping seasons. Something has to change.
The other thing about a spring run in winter is all the water in the air. Between the fog and the dew, the rain fly was soaked both mornings, inside and out, and it never fully dried in the shade of those oaks. We packed it wet on Monday and set it up in the backyard as soon as we got home, where the Miami sun dried it in about two hours.
What it cost, from the trip log
- Campsite, 2 nights: $62
- Gas, including the detour home through Ocala: $88
- Groceries: $72
- Ice and firewood: $22
- Cat sitter (Isabela, 2 visits): $30
Total: $274.
On the way home we stopped in Ocala for lunch with my parents, Ron and Linda, who are always glad to see the kids and always send us off with leftovers. Nico told my dad about the manatees for twenty minutes straight, including the breathing, with sound effects. Linda asked Maya if she'd like to come back and see them again next winter. Maya said yes, "and also in the summer, when they're gone, so we can swim." She has her mother's instinct for booking ahead.
