Tampa Electric's Manatee Viewing Center

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Tampa Electric's Big Bend Power Station draws cooling water from Tampa Bay and returns it clean and warm to a discharge canal. Manatees cannot survive long in cold water, and since the plant began running they have crowded into that canal every winter. The utility built a viewing area beside it and opens the site to the public from November 1 through April 15, daily from ten in the morning to five in the afternoon, with the trails closing an hour earlier. Parking and admission cost nothing. A covered platform looks straight down into the canal, and on a cold morning after a front has come through the count can run into the hundreds. The Tidal Walk is a 900-foot accessible boardwalk through mangrove and native planting along the shoreline, and a 50-foot observation tower gives a view over the habitat and out across the bay. There is a touch tank of cownose rays, and an education building with displays on manatee anatomy, habitat and the threats the animals face. The address is 6990 Dickman Road, Apollo Beach. Warm weather sends the manatees back out into the bay, so cold snaps are the good days