Swimming with Manatees!

Manatee, or 'Sea Cow', stare down

Manatee Pics for Sale

Swimming with manatees and photographing them underwater has been high on my list for some time now. I've heard stories and seen pictures coming out of some part of Florida so I had an idea that this was the place to start looking into achieving this goal. With a road trip to Miami in the works to see our good friends Nate and Kelly, I seized the opportunity to make this dream a reality. 

    It turns out that Crystal River, on the Gulf side of Florida is the place to go to for manatee encounters. It is one of the few places left in the world that run tours to see the manatees and let you get in the water with them. The manatees aggregate here during the winter months in the relative warm waters seeping up through fresh water springs. These springs also bring an unusual clarity to these otherwise turbid brown waters.

These manatees are big! Heidi is in the background

Heidi and her manatee friend

Paddle-like Tail of a Manatee

    When I started looking into tour options it seemed like everyone was recommending Birds Manatee Tours. I called and the guy told me that there were manatees around but the photography is not good because they aren't really hanging out in the springs, but rather moving all around in the area. Apparently the winter months of January and February are the best.  It wasn't a great start but I was determined to swim with a manatee.

    We arrived around 2:30 in the afternoon after driving down from Savannah so we missed all the tours that day but it gave us a chance to look around the area and scout things out. We ended up booking a place right on the water called The Port Hotel & Marina. It had its own manatee snorkel operation which also rented kayaks. After some careful deliberation we decided to rent a tandem kayak the next day so we could go at our own pace and possibly jump in away from the crowds of the boat tours.

Tiny baby with mom

Clear water near 3 Sisters Spring

   This turned out to be the way to do it. When we woke up I could see all the boat tours from up North had ended up coming right down to the little islands just out front of our marina. We could have literally swam from the marina and been in with manatees in a couple of minutes. But the kayak was the perfect choice. We could paddle around until we saw a manatee breath at the surface or sometimes we could see the light grey body swimming underneath us.

Two Manatees playing

   The water was a bit murky away from the springs but pictures were still possible thanks to the manatees getting so close to us. All the boat people were wearing full wetsuits, but I was fine in just a thin wetsuit top. Heidi and I spotted three manatees so I jumped in and had the encounter of a lifetime. The first thing I noticed was just how huge these animals are. They are also very slow moving and didn't seem to be put off by me being in the vicinity. Every few minutes one of the manatees would come up to the surface.
 
  I hung with one manatee for a while all by myself. I took a few pictures but then it slowly rose up right in front of me, curled up a bit and looked right at me. I tentatively reached out to pet its cheek. It was such a magical moment. I think the rules about touching the manatees may change here in the near future but it was an incredible encounter that I will never forget. Their face resembles a big dog in a way although touching them feels more like a soft elephant. We had a few more great encounters with different manatees over the course of the morning and even ran into a mom with a new born baby, but nothing really compared to that special moment where it was just me and my manatee, bonding in just six feet of murky water.

http://www.daimarsphotos.com/Wildlife/Manatees