Day 97 downstream 21 miles to Hontoon State Park

This morning we said goodbye to Sanford (first picture), and started back down stream toward Jacksonville about 140 miles away. In the photo our marina is on the left and part of the Sanford waterfront on the right.

We travelled along the southern end of Lake Monroe and re-entered the St. Johns River.

We did take one short detour to traverse an old cutoff (abandoned) portion of the river channel. It was somewhat overgrown with water hyacinth and a little shallow due to silting. The depths ranged from 5.8 feet (below the keel) to 0.8 feet, but we never touched. Our only "surprise" was that the channel through the hyacinths did get very narrow.

This picture shows the narrow channel as we are about to re-enter the main river channel. It was not as "scary" as it looks if you remember that all of those water hyacinths are floating on the water. About 4 miles before we reached our destination, we passed the Blue Springs State Park, which was our destination for the afternoon. We docked at the Hontoon State Park about 12:30 pm.

We had lunch on board, change into swim suits and head back to the Blue Springs. Here I am with mask and snorkel headed away from the steps down into the spring. The fresh water springs provide about 1 million gallons of clear fresh water per day. As we walked along a boardwalk toward the springs, we passed a spot where there was a sharp line between the dark red water of the St. Johns River and the crystal clear water flowing out of the springs. Suddenly, we could actually see the bottom! We also saw one manatee, several gar, perch and lots of mullet. The water is 72F year round, and in the Winter the manatee come here for the warmth. Notice that the un-named person who took this picture was well up the steps... It seems that the water was a little cold for her taste

We had brought our sit in inflatable rings so I opted to float down stream to the entrance. About three hours later I finally felt good and warm again. Any way it was fun to actually see the bottom in 5 feet of water with my goggles on.



Here I am at the "helm" as we head back to Lucky Us at Hontoon State Park. After using the dingy yesterday, we left her in the water and towed her behind Lucky Us. We plan to tow her again tomorrow as we plan to visit another spring.

Every day seems to have at least one "incredible" sight. Lucky you! Today we had two sightings... The first one was this art-deco (?) manatee at the Blue Springs. The shape of the manatee looks pretty good, but the multicolor tiles really were???

The second unbelievable sight was this "Do It Yourself" paddle wheel boat. Obviously a work in progress, but the windows were closed, which hopefully meant that the AC was working.