Swimming with Manatees

Swimming with manatees

 

Cold water on my face, fins splashing all around me, then I move closer to the roped in enclosure. The big creatures look so peaceful. So still that if you didn’t know any better you would think that they were statues -but that’s all for later.

First, we had to get ready. We had to get all of the kayaks blown up. It took around 20 minutes, but it wasn’t too bad. My sibling and I were soaking in the hot air and the silky sand. But that wasn’t as amazing as getting to see manatees, so we blew up all of our kayaks. Once we all got into the water on our kayaks, we didn’t know which way to go to get to the place with the manatees. We asked a few people and they pointed us in the right direction. On our way out of the input spot we saw a group of people that were near a manatee. We got to see it too and it even swam under my kayak.

We finally got out of the input spot (seeing several manatees on the way) and we headed up river to the three sisters area. The paddle was kind of long but it wasn’t too bad. The only part that I do regret is holding the paddle in a way that made me get a (very) painful blister.

 

When we got to the spot that had the manatees it was fairly crowded. Charlie, Caroline, and me were all begging to get in the water with our new wetsuits, but Mom and Dad both told us that they wanted to get us all tied up first.

After dad tied all of our kayaks together we were able to get in. It was a lot colder than I expected and my goggles kept getting fogged up, but it was going to be worth it.

 

Everyone was finally ready and we were able to swim up to one of the sanctuaries that had the manatees in them. The manatees were very still but some of them were swimming around. When i looked around i saw that there was a tour group that had around 20 people, so it made it a bit crowded. The manatees were so big, but they still looked very gentle. Even though the view underwater was spectacular after about 15 minutes I started getting really cold. Charlie was also getting cold, so we got back in the kayaks to warm up. Mom and Dad decided to wrap it up.

 

When we were about to head out, Mom noticed that Caroline’s paddle was missing. We looked all over the area around where it may have been dropped, but it was nowhere to be found. Dad even asked a few people if they had seen any lost, floating paddles but they had not. It is a good thing that you can always buy a new one.

 

We decided to look a little more for Caroline’s paddle and we headed down the river to a very pretty section. There were a lot of beautiful trees overhead. I also got to ride with Mom since I had a blister on my thumb and Caroline wanted to ride in the solo boat. We looked more, but the paddle is lost to this very day.(as far as we know.) We then decided to head back, giving up the search for the paddle.

 

Once we got back to the manatee section, there were a lot less people. We even got back into the water to see the manatees again. It turned out that there were also less manatees in that section of the river right then too. We did get to see a few more though. Still as huge as ever. 

 

It was getting late and we had left Molly in the RV for a while now, so we headed back. I ended up in a kayak with dad this time (i still didn’t have to paddle) so we went pretty fast. We each saw a few more manatees coming up for a breath of air, but all to soon we were back at the input spot. We were all sad to see this amazing adventure coming to an end, though we knew that we had to get back to Molly in the RV. I will never forget this magical experience and i am sure that my family wont either. I hope to do it again someday.