I had to come in here and share our experience tonight. Had my children with me and was going to swim out and get a couple quick night free dives in and shoot some fish. We were at a local hot spot for tourists. I was gearing up in the water as usual, and I see a manatee headed straight for me. Normally I see them and they pass right by like two strangers on the street at this particular spot. We share a glance but thats it.
As I reached for my mask, the manatee stopped and started rubbing up against me. Like a dog would, rubbing its back against you. My children saw it and asked if it bit me. NOPE. So I hung there for 10 min while it used me as a scratching post. Every couple minutes it would swim 5 feet from me, come up for air, look at me then come back in. Finally I had enough. So I rubbed it back. It went belly up a few times for me and then my children (mature & respectful are words I use to describe them) realized what was happening and they came over. One by one the manatee approached my kids and started the scratching post routine.
We were all standing in 3'-4' of water. So for about an hour and a half, the manatee would circle away and then come back to us and have us rub it as it leaned against us. I didn't get my night dive in. We stood on the shore line watching the manatee as it stayed right there and watched us, like it was asking us to come back and play.
Some things I did do while we were interacting with it. I made sure to do the normal DO NOT RIDE, DO NOT TRAP, DO NOT ENCIRCLE, etc. all the commonsense things. No splashing, yelling, screaming, feeding... One thing I did do that I know most do not was a quick inspection of cuts and damage. There was not any recent visible open wounds that would lead me to believe it was there for help. There were some older scaring on its back and underside. The sea growth on its back seemed healthy and weren't any visible sea parasites on it.
One thing that did concern me though was that I thought it looked like a young one. I mean it was ~6' in length but still seemed juvenile to me. I kept thinking its mother should be here somewhere and it was waiting for her or was seeking attention since its mother was gone?
Anyways, I did feel bad about leaving it when we did. It seemed like it wanted us to hang around longer. After 10 min on the shore staring at eachother, we started walking back to our vehicle. It too was swimming our path and would surface to watch us as we walked. The kids and I sat in the vehicle for another 30min and watched the manatee do its circles back and forth where it saw us last as we entered our vehicle. Eventually We left. Still feel like I just left my dog though. My daughters asked if it could live in our pool if its mommy left it, we could adopt it they said. :smack:
