My wife plays Roller Derby, but I have very little interest in the sport. What it does do is take her to some fairly interesting locations. On this particular occasion it was taking her to Jacksonville, Florida - a mere 2 hours drive from Crystal River.
Crystal River is home to a year round population of manatees and a number of dive companies offer the chance to snorkel with these gentle giants. I plumped for American Pro Diving who for a few dollars more will take you down for a cavern dive after the manatee encounter. They do other trips too in the afternoon but sadly I had to get back up the road to Jacksonville for Gill.i.am's tournament.
Despite being told we may have to drift around for a few hours we before we found them, we were in the water with a large a male within 15 minutes. Then a large female.
As our presence and natural manatee behaviour began to stir up the vis we went back to the boat and headed up river for another two minutes before encountering a mother and a calf. The little one was really curious, much like the young seals of the Farne Islands.
It was a great encounter.
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| Manatee |
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