Category Archives: 57-Gulf Coast Florida

57-Gulf Coast Florida

Manatees – so unique!

We took a short trip while in Port Charlotte to see some manatees.  Manatees are fairly common in this part of the gulf coast of Florida, and in the cold weather when the gulf waters get a bit colder they come upstream into canals and harbors where the water is a bit warmer.

We had several options to see manatees, some places even allow you to ‘swim with the manatees’, who are very calm and tame.  These places, however, are pretty expensive and require a boat trip to get to where you can see manatees whether or not you want to get into the water with them.  There are some places like Sea World where they have tanks containing captive manatees.  There was one place in nearby Fort Myers where a power plant discharging warm waters into a river attract wild manatees during the winter.  We chose to see manatees there as they are wild manatees and not captive.  We knew we wouldn’t get real good views of the manatees by watching them from a shoreline rather than seeing them in a tank or from underwater with them.  We saw lots of ‘shapes’ in the water as the manatee browsed around under water, and saw them poke their noses above the surface to breath.  Here are pictures we took at Manatee Park, near the power plant along with some underwater pictures I found on the internet to show what they look like in more detail.

57-Gulf Coast Florida

Driving through the Everglades – where we ran over an alligator!

To get from Port Charlotte where we’re staying to the Florida keys, we had to drive across the southern end of Florida, through the Everglades.  I was picturing this as a jungle, with large mossy trees overhanging the road and that it would be dark and perhaps scary.

Nope!  in most places it was a fairly dry level area of marsh grasses from what we could see from the truck.  Some stands of trees, many with no leaves as it’s wintertime.  Some palms, some cypress, some we don’t know the name of.  But, mostly open marsh areas.

We drove to the keys on State Route 41.  It’s a two-lane road with several airboat tour places and some small “Indian villages”.  No gas stations, no fast-food restaurants etc.

At one point I saw a fast blur darting into the road and in that split-second realized it was a good sized alligator – probably between 5-6 feet – and before I could do more than a quick “OH” we hit it.  With both front and rear tires, THUMP and THUMP!   Solid thumps like if you run over a tire on a rim on the freeway!  There wasn’t any place to pull over or turn around for more than a mile, so we couldn’t stop to see whether we killed it but Jeff did see it just lying there in the rear-view mirror so we’re pretty sure we killed it.  It saddened us but we just kept on going.

Here’s a picture I found online of an alligator walking across a road.  The one we hit was probably about this size but was moving FAST – like he’d crossed that highway many times before and knew he had to run but this time his timing was just off.  🙁

57-Gulf Coast Florida

We did a short trip without the trailer to the Florida Keys – BEAUTIFUL!

Several months ago we planned our stay in Florida because we know wintertime is the season here.  We searched the south end of Florida and the keys to find a place to stay for a while so we could enjoy the scenery and see the keys.  Alas, we were unable to find anyplace to stay that had space and would take the dog and would be under $100/day.  $100/day is just way too expensive for us!

So, we ended up in Port Charlotte on the gulf side, about 120 miles from the southern tip of Florida where the keys start.  At first we were thinking we’d make an early start and drive down and back in one day.  We ended up deciding to drive down and stay overnight at a motel that would take the dog so we would have most of two days in the keys.  That worked out pretty good.

Although our time in the keys was short, we had a great time!  We took a glass-bottom boat tour of the reefs on the Atlantic side (see separate post) and were able to see lots of fish as well as part of a shipwreck.

We also drove down to the extreme end of Key West where it’s just 90 miles from that point to Cuba.  People actually make that 90 mile crossing on rafts, small boats, etc.  I used to know a construction worker who swam the 90 miles hanging onto a log!  Yipes!

We weren’t able to take as many pictures of the beautiful water, islands etc. as we wanted.  Much of the shore is private and while driving down route 1 you can’t stop and take pictures whereever you want, no shoulder to the road!  So, the pictures below are a mix of some that we took and some that I found online that match the sights that we saw.

The color of the water was in some areas deep blue to a light blue, and in some areas was a deep emerald to a light green.  The lighter colors is where the water is very shallow and is sandy underneath instead of reefs.  And the little patches of mangrove trees standing right out in the water was so exotic looking!  In some places there would be one or a few trees WAYYYYY out there in the water but the water is so shallow all over both the gulf side and the Atlantic side that sometimes you could see people out standing up about quarter mile out in the water.  It was weird!

Here are pictures we took of the keys (or ones I found online that matched what we saw):

57-Gulf Coast Florida

At our RV park in Port Charlotte, we’re right behind a Bird Sanctuary pond, with an alligator!

Our RV park borders a bird sanctuary and has a walking path along it that dogs can be off-leash on.   Jeff takes Laddy there at least a couple times a day so he can run around a bit.

On several trips to the area Jeff has seen a small alligator, about 3 feet.  We took a couple pictures of it: