Oh, the Huge Manatee!!!

As a change of pace for our holiday weekend, Porcupine would like to salute a new neighbor - a Florida manatee skulking about in Sesuit Harbor in Dennis.

Like most residents of South Florida, he appears to be summering on Cape Cod. The harbormaster, Terry Clen, has named him 'Dennis'. Dennis was first spotted in Provincetown, again in Sesuit Harbor in Dennis last week, at Gray's Beach in Yarmouth Port, briefly in the Cape Cod Canal, and then he returned - as most tourists do - to the best beaches on Cape, in Dennis. Porcupine happens to prefer Corporation Beach, but he is not a manatee.


Covered in moss, Dennis has one eye and a damaged flipper indicating a hard life. Still - there's an old comedy routine about the old time baseball pitcher - "He had one leg, he had one arm, but...he had HEART!!..." Dennis made it to Cape Cod from Florida, snorting along on the Gulf Stream, certainly demonstrating heart, if not good sense at this chilly time of year.

Welcome to Cape Cod, Dennis. The Stranding Network and Florida enviornmental officials will soon be flying you back to Florida - but to us, you will always be Dennis...the Manatee with HEART...

"We now return you to the 2008 regularly scheduled political vitriol...."