Manatees in the Englewood Canal

We are back in Florida for a couple of weeks, sending my folks off to Alaska next week, and then cleaning and organizing and closing the house here for the summer.  Today dawned sunny and warm, so we decided to exercise the boat before putting it away for the season.

We decided to head out for Venice to our favorite restaurant on the water.

A lot of the channel markers have Osprey nests - this one had an adult and three babies.

A sailboat behind us in the intercoastal waterway had to wait for the Venice Island bridge to open. 

We ate at the restaurant in the background after finding a place to dock the boat on the big dock at the marina.

We spotted a Mangrove area full of white egrets, so slowed down to observe them.  That is when we noticed a big animal in the water.  

It actually looked like two big animals - we watched a while longer and realized it was Manatees coming out of the water to eat the mangrove leaves.

It is really hard to get a good picture of a manatee - they are very shy and just come out of the water for an instant at a time.  So it was very special to watch them eating when they made their brief appearances.