Canterbury Sails by Chasseur: Titusville to Vero Beach

December 16 -18, 2012 Monday - Wednesday

Still moving....reached Titusville on Monday, a nice marina and town. We were in tank tops and shorts. It was so warm we had our hatches open all night and slept in the night air - what a joy. We were in the Mosquito Lagoon of the ICW and with it, what else, mosquitoes. We had not seen a mosquito for a long time!
Tuesday morning, before we shoved off for Eau Gallie, Terry was washing the salt off "Chasseur". The dock faucet leaked water and was dripping through the dock boards. Within minutes manatees were swarming, taking on as much water as they could. One rolled on his back with fins up and mouth open letting the water fall into his mouth, a very experienced mammal (see photo). Manatees not only love fresh water, they require it for osmoregulation. They are like camels and can store it. They are salt water mammals, but they will swim to wherever they can to get fresh water and then go on their merry way.
Manatees can measure up to 13 feet long and weigh as much as 1300 pounds. They are generally herbivores. These mammals spend half their day sleeping, surfacing for air about every 20 minutes. The rest of the day they graze in shallow water eating up to 10% of their body weight. They are intelligent and capable of understanding discrimination tasks, show signs of complex associated learning and have advanced long term memory. Manatees taste and smell, and communicate via sight, sound, and touch. Incredible creatures! It is so sad that man is a threat to them. They "hear" on a higher frequency. Many large boats emit very low frequencies which confuse them and they become unaware of boats near them. They are often injured by the prop of boats. Large ships have cut them in half.
We arrived in Vero Beach on Wednesday afternoon. We will be here for about a week to include Christmas.