tropicaledit
Contributor
Hey all, well I've died and gone to heaven. I swear that damn beach is magical. I've seen so many animals off that beach, unbelievable. Anyway around 1pm I went out for a solo-dive, saw some people gathering around these "Large dark spots". Sure enough, as I'm getting my gear situated (15 yards into the water) there they are, my first sighting of MANATEES in the ocean !!! I've seen them in springs up in tampa before but this was different. These were manatees in LBTS.
Anyway, they swim right by me and go South. By this time my gear is on good, everything is right, and I think "well if I hustle", I can catch up to them. Sure enough, I head south about 40 yards and catch up. By this time they've been spotted by some others playing off the shoreline. So I catch up and approach them, I get about 10 feet away and just try and enjoy the moment and just watch'em. Well the others are waist deep in water checking them out, and everyone is having a great time. I'm just in about 4-5' of water and had the plan of just basically heading out to the 2nd reef. Well, I had my couple minutes watchin'em out and I decided it was time to head out to the reef. And thats what I do, I start to heading out to the reef. So as I start swimming out, back-pedaling out, I notice these dark figures coming towards me and then, ..... they 're they were !! I had a following, a (6) (1 ton each) MANATEE following !!!
I was offshore about a good 50 yards by myself and here I was with these Mantatees, totally alone, and .... they're following me wherever I go !!!
So what happened was they started coming closer and closer and I just kept back- pedaling slowly, I wasn't spooked by any means. And before you know it, these 6 HUGE animals were surrounding me !! They were on my left, on my right, and a couple times swimming underneath me. Now I know they're basically harmless so I wasn't to worried, but this one particular one came so close to my face that I could see his/hers eyelids, and and I think eyelashes !! I figure, he got 2 feet from my face. Thats honestly 24 inches away !!!
I got to tell ya, I was starting to have second thoughts to what they were thinging because they where so close. Anyway, at the time, I had my dive flag with me and it was close ( 2 Feet away). Still, I cant quite figure out there behavior, where they interested in me (Black Scuba Mask on face blowing bubbles) ? my dive flag (yellow string with big white styrofoam) ? because the one sniffed the dive flag as if to check it out. Did I look like a strange Manatee to them ? At this point, I'm not really sure.
I had a good 10 minutes with these big ones, amazing. I never tried to touch them. I'm all about just watching them ... and it was great. I'll never forget it.
This one will go in my water-logged beat-up dive log for me to read when I'm 80.
Beautiful Animals.
Last note, BOATERS try as best ya can to be aware. A couple of these guys had some bad incidents happen to them. Some bad scars on they're backs.
Anyway, they swim right by me and go South. By this time my gear is on good, everything is right, and I think "well if I hustle", I can catch up to them. Sure enough, I head south about 40 yards and catch up. By this time they've been spotted by some others playing off the shoreline. So I catch up and approach them, I get about 10 feet away and just try and enjoy the moment and just watch'em. Well the others are waist deep in water checking them out, and everyone is having a great time. I'm just in about 4-5' of water and had the plan of just basically heading out to the 2nd reef. Well, I had my couple minutes watchin'em out and I decided it was time to head out to the reef. And thats what I do, I start to heading out to the reef. So as I start swimming out, back-pedaling out, I notice these dark figures coming towards me and then, ..... they 're they were !! I had a following, a (6) (1 ton each) MANATEE following !!!
I was offshore about a good 50 yards by myself and here I was with these Mantatees, totally alone, and .... they're following me wherever I go !!!
So what happened was they started coming closer and closer and I just kept back- pedaling slowly, I wasn't spooked by any means. And before you know it, these 6 HUGE animals were surrounding me !! They were on my left, on my right, and a couple times swimming underneath me. Now I know they're basically harmless so I wasn't to worried, but this one particular one came so close to my face that I could see his/hers eyelids, and and I think eyelashes !! I figure, he got 2 feet from my face. Thats honestly 24 inches away !!!
I got to tell ya, I was starting to have second thoughts to what they were thinging because they where so close. Anyway, at the time, I had my dive flag with me and it was close ( 2 Feet away). Still, I cant quite figure out there behavior, where they interested in me (Black Scuba Mask on face blowing bubbles) ? my dive flag (yellow string with big white styrofoam) ? because the one sniffed the dive flag as if to check it out. Did I look like a strange Manatee to them ? At this point, I'm not really sure.
I had a good 10 minutes with these big ones, amazing. I never tried to touch them. I'm all about just watching them ... and it was great. I'll never forget it.
This one will go in my water-logged beat-up dive log for me to read when I'm 80.
Beautiful Animals.
Last note, BOATERS try as best ya can to be aware. A couple of these guys had some bad incidents happen to them. Some bad scars on they're backs.
