Four Points Bulletin

Flying from Oceanside, CA to Florida for a two week vacation I was set on seeing manatees. The opinions were out as to if we would see them, being that it is cold in Florida and when manatees get too cold they perish. I was still hopeful and so on day one of our arrival we went to Blue Spring State Park (a historic citrus farm turned state park). Blue Spring is the largest spring on the St. Johns River, pumping out 102 million gallons of 72F water ever day. Blue Spring has been a beacon for manatee research since 1978, seven years after Jacques Cousteau’s featured the now endangered mammals in an episode called “The Forgotten Mermaids” of his television series The Underwater World of Jacques Cousteau. The data collected here makes up one of the longest-running and most comprehensive manatee databases in the world. Today we lucked out, as there were 58 manatees at the spring. About a week later scientists and visitors alike had something to awe at, the water became so cold almost 800 manatees warmed themselves in the crystal clear waters of Blue Spring.