Swimming with the Manatees

       Today was one of the the best activities of the trip so far. One of the very first things that we planned for this trip was to go swimming with the manatees, an activity that was first discovered by Miriam as she looked through one of our research books. Everyone has been looking forward to it for a long time, even though we had to get up pretty early in the morning. And it was worth it.

       Mama’s alarm clock woke us at five-thirty , at which time we had to scramble into a bathing suit, grab our clothing, and go. Swimming with the manatees is best in the morning, which is why we had to leave early. We ate three hurried muffins in the car and arrived soon after. It was still pretty dark when we got to the building, so we just went in to wait for the manatee to start. Luckily, hot chocolate was provided.

       Soon, a woman guided us and several other people into a room to watch a movie about how to behave on our tour. (Don’t touch the manatees unless they come to you, don’t disturb an eating or sleeping manatee, only use one hand to pat it if you do get the chance so that you don’t give the impression of grabbing, do a dead man’s float and don’t move if you’re a certain distance from a manatee, etc.) After that was done, it was time to put on our wetsuits. Mine was too tight at first- it felt like I was being squeezed through a super-skinny tube- so I got a different one. When everyone in our group was ready, we  took a short, one minute ride to the docks and our tour guides, Skylar and Tanner, took us onto our boat. Tanner started driving us while Skylar brushed us up on our understanding of respectfulness towards manatees. Then everybody looked off the side of the boat, watching for manatees.

       When we were almost to our destination (we were of course going very slow) we began to see little disturbances in the water, which our guides called ‘footprints’. Manatees were swimming up to the surface to breathe. That got everybody on board very excited- until then we hadn’t even known if there were going to be a lot of manatees, because some days they’re scarce. But soon we stopped at the place that  we were going to be swimming. Our guide sprayed some stuff on our goggles to prevent them from getting fogged up. Them we kicked off our flop-flops (I am still so excited about being able to wear flip-flops) and got into the water.

       We started seeing manatees almost immediately. Everybody in my family agreed that the manatee’s size was incredible They were swimming right up to us, trying to be social. The first person to get a manatee up in their face was the tour guide called Skylar, who of course swims with them all the time. But soon the manatees were letting everybody pet them. When a manatee wants to be social, they swim right up to you, look you in the eye, and start rubbing their nose on your face and neck and shoulder, or they just let you pat them. I was floating over one, and it started rolling around and around! Skylar took a video of it- the link is here:

https://order.picthrive.com/fac63184-5069-4c36-a193-37a7ab8e0a91/video/ce8e99c5-c14d-407c-85eb-f21b82e11d8a

But the manatees were everywhere, so we moved to a different spot, because there were more. We swam into a fenced area labeled “swimmers only”, where there was another group of manatee onlookers. We all had pool noodles; ours were white and theirs were green and blue, so it was easy to tell the difference. We went towards another fenced in area (this one only for wildlife) to observe more manatees from the outside of it. A baby manatee swam out of the wildlife preservation area! Skylar and I were the only ones close enough to see it (as far as I know) and got to admire it for awhile before this person with a weird-looking, gigantic camera got right in his face. Everybody was annoyed at him. Our group left the area. That part of the tour was almost over anyway- it was time to go back to the boat.

       Skylar had black-and-white checkered boots with red edges, so I followed those as we swam back to the boat. We stopped for a few minutes to admire a manatee that was chewing on some rop e. Then a manatee swam right up to my face, which you might remember means that I was allowed to touch it. I gave it a few pats, but then it sort of put its head on my shoulder like it was trying to hug me. Which I thought was cute until it started chewing on my hair.

       I realized what it was doing when I felt it pull my head slightly. This didn’t really scare  me, because the manatee had done this to Skylar earlier, and from what I had learned about manatees that day, (which was actually quite a lot) they didn’t have teeth in the front, and the teeth that they did have weren’t very sharp. I thought that it was really funny, actually. But then the manatee started dragging me away. Skylar helped me to get it off my hair and we swam back to the boat, where we all laughed about my story.

       When everybody was ready, we started heading to the next swimming place. Luckily there were snacks and hot chocolate onboard- otherwise I think I might have frozen to death. Compared to the last place, that place had an upside and a downside- the water was much clearer and a bit warmer than the last place, but the manatees in this place were all sleeping, and therefore not quite as exciting as they would have been awake. They were still interesting, though- one had several barnacles on its tale t hat hadn’t yet fallen off in the fresh water. (Manatees spend part of their lives in salt water, so this one had obviously been there very recently.) Also, since manatees are mammals, they have to come up for air, so while they are sleeping they automatically swim up to the surface every once in a while. Our group swam up to a little spring to watch a manatee breathe. It’s incredible that they do it in their sleep.

 

       When we were done watching, we swam back to our boat. The tour was over, so Tanner drove us back to the dock and we took a bus back to get changed and drop off our wetsuits. The manatees were done, but Miriam and I had no idea what our next surprise would be.