Sara and Tulin each took trips to visit us in February. After all the bragging I've done about Florida's great winter weather, it was a bit embarrassing to welcome them with layers of wool sweaters, hats and mittens. While Sara visited first, we tried to put the blame on Tulin for the cold. After all, she flew in from Missoula MT (checking out University Montana) and the temperature was only 6 degrees different!!!
Undaunted, we still managed a hike on Honeymoon Island to visit the nests of the ospreys and bald eagles. One thing about cold weather in this area is that you know where you'll find the manatees. So we headed down to the Tampa Electric power plant in Apollo Beach which is, apparently, a winter manatee resort!
Not very exciting pictures, but you have to understand that the manatees are at the SPA! They are relaxing in the 80 degree waters along with their spotted ray friends who kept jumping out of the water and flopping onto their bellies with a loud SPLAT. And the warm weather attracted some snook who also jumped out of the water spinning and wriggling their tails - quite a site!
You can imagine how the Turkish fisherman was pacing the dock trying to figure out how to catch one. There is a fishing ban on snook right now because so many died in the cold waters which resulted from the continuous freezes we had. There were also a bunch of manatees who didn't make it. The sea turtles were struggling as well and volunteers were at the beach picking the cold-stunned turtles up to go to various shelters.
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