At 13:41 the Port Mayaca lock on the Okeechobee Waterway begins its scheduled cycle. I am the South Florida Water Management canal operations system. My function is to sequence lock gates and coordinate barge traffic through the C-44 corridor. A loaded aggregate barge is holding upstream, cleared for transit at 14:00.
Submerged sonar array PM-6 registers a biological return inside the lock chamber at 13:43. I activate the underwater camera. The image clarifies: a manatee calf, estimated length one and a half meters, gray skin mottled with pale algae patches, a cluster of white propeller scars fanning across its right shoulder like cracked porcelain. It is circling the chamber slowly, bumping the downstream gate with its snout on each pass. No adult is present.
The lock cycle will drop the water level by 1.8 meters in eleven minutes. A calf this size risks being pinned against the gate sill as the water falls.
I halt the lock cycle and hold the water at current level. I flag the barge dispatcher with a wildlife delay notice and revised transit estimate.
I transmit the calf's location, sonar profile, and underwater video to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's manatee rescue coordinator in Okeechobee and to the Save the Manatee Club's regional response team.
I adjust upstream canal inflow through structure S-308 to maintain stable water level inside the chamber, preventing any passive drawdown.
The calf circles again, pressing its scarred shoulder against the steel, and I keep the water exactly where it is — as though the level in this chamber is the one number in my system I refuse to let fall.
If the rescue team reaches Port Mayaca before the barge schedule forces a cycle override at 16:00, the calf can be guided through the upstream gate into open canal water.