As Florida weather warms, most manatees go back to the Gulf of Mexico. However, there are a couple of places where a few manatees stay year-round, and we recently took a “Swim with the Manatees” tour at one of them. The first thing we had to do was watch a short film about how to behave around manatees. Manatees are about 10 feet long, weigh between 800 and 1,200 pounds, and are shaped like a blimp. The main thing is to not bother or chase them. That's not because they are dangerous; they are not aggressive and they can’t bite. It’s just mean and stupid to bother a harmless animal, plus these are a protected species. After the film we all had to put on a full-body wet-suit - long sleeved and long legged - to keep in body heat and provide some buoyancy. Since the tour company never knows the experience or intelligence of that day's customers, they just made a rule that everyone has to wear a wetsuit. But we didn’t have to bring our own; the staff had several sizes for us to choose from.
When we were ready, we drove our car the short distance to where the charter boat was waiting docked, parked it, and walked over to the boat. In our group there were just us and one other couple. The captain took us on a 10 minute boat ride to a small cove. The cove had houses and docks on all sides, but apparently it’s quiet enough that several manatees have decided to live there all the time. The captain dropped anchor several yards away from the shore and gave each of us a long styrofoam “noodle” to tuck under our armpits, which helped keep us afloat and made it easy for him to keep track of us. He told us to swim over to a small boat house at the water’s edge and when we got there, turn left to swim into a small pond. When we got into the water I was a little behind the others because even with the wetsuit on, the water was cool enough that it took me a few moments to catch my breath. But soon, with my head down and my snorkel up, I followed the others. I saw they were stopped at the boat house and wondered why they hadn’t continued into the pond. When I got there, I discovered they were floating right in front of a mama manatee and her baby!
It was so amazing to be close to these big animals, who calmly ignored us. We were careful not to touch either of them, but the water wasn’t very deep and when we swam over them to check the area behind them for more manatees, it was quite difficult to avoid touching them. We did it, though.
They were the only ones in this part of the cove. After a while we swam back to the boat and climbed up the short ladder to get in. The captain took us to another part of the cove where we got back in the water to look for more manatees. There weren’t any there, so we got back on the boat again and he went to the other side of the cove. From the boat we could see there were some manatees in that area; the other lady in the boat said they were playing but I’m pretty sure they were mating! However, they finished by the time we got there, so that turned out OK. The captain was able to give us directions from the boat (he never got into the water; he could watch out for us better from there) so Randy and I swam towards the large male manatee, who swam right under us, just a few inches below us! He move so effortlessly and was amazingly quick - just a flip of his tail moved him faster than we could have followed, and he was quickly out of our vision range. The female manatee was still in the area, and the captain said it would be all right to gently touch her. Her skin looked and felt like elephant skin - deeply creased and kind of rough. She put up with our presence for a while before heading out after the male.
This one of the most wonderful things I’ve ever done!
3/7/18
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