Swimming With the Manatees Part Two

We have had more than one person who did a manatee tour tell us it was amazing.  Amazing is a word I like to reserve for things that are truly amazing so I wanted to see for myself if I thought it earned that adjective.  It definitely did.

This was not only my first time interacting with manatees, it was the first time I went snorkeling.  I had some concerns about this.  I have a bit of a fear of underwater activities, especially ones that include moving things in the water.  That part ended up being fine with some deep breathing.  What wasn't fine was the fact I was snorkel retarded and did not have my mask adjusted correctly so I kept getting water in my mask.  Once I resolved that issue, it was a blast!  Nathan is a pro, so he already knew how to do all of this.

We ended up interacting with several manatees over our three hour tour.  To be up close and touching the manatees was amazing.  Really amazing.  I'm on the left here.

Nathan was usually the first one to the manatees so he had lots of touch time with them.  Since he did so well with that, I asked him to take the pictures for us.

I couldn't handle doing the pictures but I did the touching the manatees just fine.

Nathan had one of the manatees swim right underneath him.

At one point, the tour guide asked me what I thought.  Here I am taking out my mouthpiece so I can tell him, "It's awesome!"

And it was.  This is one of the neatest things we've done in a long time.  I highly recommend doing the tour if you do get a chance. 

Living the life in Florida!