Day 5 (January 14): Manatees… and Flight Woes

Given the cool weather that we knew was going to start to set in yesterday and become increasingly chilly up to our departure time today, we had a very simple plan for this, our last day in Florida: enjoy a leisurely breakfast at the hotel, pick up a rental and drive south to see manatees, check out and head to the airport.  By 8:30AM, we had settled into the continental breakfast at Waterside in the hotel.  The fresh fruit and pastries and the oatmeal were washed down with hot coffee and freshly-squeezed Florida OJ.  

We then picked up a rental car from a Hertz location in the hotel.  However, with 500 rooms checking out today after the FMEA conference (according to the waitress at breakfast anyway), the hotel was a zoo, and the Hertz desk was also a zoo.  It took an hour to organize the car and have it brought around to the hotel entrance.  It was 10:30AM by the time we got away.  We headed south on State Highway 41 and soon came to a standstill:  a train was stopped across the four-lane highway.  We speculate they were decoupling cars and adding other cars, but whatever they were doing, it took 15 minutes before the thing starting moving again and the highway re-opened.  We eventually arrived at the TECO Manatee Viewing Center in Apollo Beach, only to find the parking lot packed.  We headed to the overflow, which was a 15-minute walk to the Center.  All in all, the morning felt like riddled with roadblocks to see some manatees.  The hoards of people at the Center was mesmerizing, but eventually we arrived at a boardwalk over an inlet of water where a coal-fired power plant releases its cooling waters.  And that is where our grumpiness turned to smiles!  There were more manatees soaking in the warm waters than we could count!  Not only were there manatees, there were black-tipped reef sharks in great numbers, too, chasing fish.  All in all, it was a great show.

Feeling at one with nature, we viewed the impressive manta rays in a holding tank at the Centre and then headed north, back to the hotel.  Once back in our room, we checked our flight status, only to find our flight to Toronto had been cancelled.  We quickly packed and checked out, headed to the airport in our rental car, and were able to rebook on a flight to Montreal.  But that flight encountered a 2.5 hour delay.  By the time we arrived in Montreal, we just missed the last flight to Halifax.  Air Canada put us up in a nearby hotel for the night, and we will fly home at 8AM tomorrow.  All in all, it could have been much worse, and we were fortunate to have worked in a buffer day before returning to work.

This January conference getaway was an excellent learning opportunity for Pam, and it gave me a few days to put work aside and relax.  It was a thoroughly enjoyable few days in Florida. 

Now, I realize this seems a bit odd, to take a picture of Pam with smokestacks in the background.  But those smokestacks create one of Tampa Bay’s most exciting attractions:  the TECO Manatee Viewing Center.  Read on!

On a shallow canal near Apollo Beach, half an hour south of downtown Tampa, manatees show up in droves from November to April to soak in the warm waters discharged from the generators of the coal-fired electric plant.  The waters are also filled with black-tipped reef sharks chasing various species of fish for lunch.  They leave the manatees alone.

The Center also boasts a 10,000-gallon tank with many species of sting rays.

And, just in case you’re familiar with manatees, here is a friendly one to give you an idea!  Think seals, just chubbier and with a bigger tail.

Let’s talk trash for a minute.  From our hotel room in downtown Tampa, we could see a hill of sorts in the distance.  South Florida is so flat that it seemed out of place.  Enroute to the Manatee Viewing Center, we actually figured out what the hill is…

The hill looms behind the palm trees along State Route 41.  It almost looks like a ski hill!

But don’t be fooled:  that is no ski hill…. It is the site of all of Tampa’s garbage.  The scale of the site is overwhelming.

Our Air Canada Rouge Airbus A-321 to Montreal, which replaced our flight to Toronto.  The Montreal flight ended up being 2.5 hours late and then we missed our connection to Halifax, requiring an overnight stay.

Dinner on the flight to Montreal included a delicious entree of mac ‘n cheese.  It was our first time having the Air Canada mac ‘n cheese, and we loved it!