Swimming with the Manatees 12.17.11
After 4 full, and I do mean full, days at Disney World we
took it easy for a couple days. Well, as
easy as possible with Mom & Dad!
Haha… We took off Geocaching on
Friday and had a great system going, picking up about 20 caches in an
afternoon. Saturday morning we ran some
errands & picked up a few more caches before heading back to the condo to
pack everything up and get ready for the road trip to Texas
(and my folks back to Kansas).
But we had one more thing on our list to do before leaving Florida – go to Crystal Springs
and swim with the Manatees. Woohoo!
We signed up with Capt. Mike’s Sunshine River Tours and had
a wonderful Captain, Capt. Donna who took a group of 12 out to the Crystal
River National Wildlife Refuge area. The
Manatees flock to this area as there are warm water springs that remains a
constant 72 degrees and since they carry so little body fat, can only survive
in water temps above 68 degrees.
After suiting up in wetsuits (an experience/show all in
itself, huh, Mom?! I know, we said we
wouldn’t talk about that…haha!) we watched the mandatory ‘don’t harass the
Manatees’ videos and jumped onto a pontoon boat to go out to the sanctuary.
Arriving outside the King Spring we jumped in the lukewarm
water out to the Keyhole, between two sanctuary markers. We swam over to the area and watched &
waited. Finally our patience paid off –
we had several encounters. The first was
a mother and her calf, who was nursing.
The Michael and Mom had one playing with them….
This one loved getting it’s back rubbed and, just like a
dog, would roll over onto it’s back and have you rub its belly!
The whole experience was so amazing! There were hundreds of Manatees in the water,
nearly everywhere you looked you saw more.
Michael even kicked one on his swim back to the boat. Doh! :-) I was frozen after being in the water for an
hour or so, so much so that I was shivering and Mom was having an asthma
episode so we went back to the boat.
Ah…mazing. Wow…
More to follow…
Rene
posted by Rene & Michael at
8:07 PM
2 Comments:
That was the most fantastic experience of my life!! An incredible adventure. Thanks Rene and Michael for suggesting it.
Love you, Mom
Now you two (four) are having an incredible adventure! The pictures are so good. We cannot wait for more of your adventures. John & Deb
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