The highway and Nature calls...

Cap'n Doreen telepathically calling all manatees. 

It ain't called Crystal River for nuthin'.

Searching for snouts in the water.

Wendy's dream come true.

Got the pedal to the metal once again. Almost there!

So no good shots of us packing all our crap - and tons of sand - into the van and hot-footing it out of Siesta Key. It was a good couple of days but we had a 1pm Manatee Swim planned and 2.5 hours to get there. As Bakers always do, we showed up in Crystal River with 1 minute to spare, though we were supposed to be there at 12:30 for wetsuit fitting and instruction on how to correctly make a manatee your slave.

Since we missed that part, they just rubberized us and a mother-daughter team from Tampa. Looked like something off of Wipeout about to be filmed. Fortunately, it wasn't. Just got on a pontoon with Captain Doreen and she headed away from the dock into Kings Bay. Literally, she just headed about 100 yards away and then said we were to be looking for manatees in the murky water. Of course, they come up to breathe about every 5 minutes, so you just look for their snouts poking above the water like oversized sharpei pups. For a moment I thought, "Oh this is going to be grand. I could have done this from the dock and saved myself $160!" But then, she said, "There are three!" Of course, we couldn't see them but we followed her advice and jumped into the incredibly shallow and vegetation-heavy water.

When I say shallow, I mean anywhere from 6-20' deep it looked. No clue how some of the boats get in and out because I could see bottom almost the whole time. Now the foxtail that grows is really thick and secured in a light muck that clouds the water as soon as you disturb it. Needless to say, flailing legs managed to make things quite difficult to see. On top of that, we've never snorkeled. So now we're trying not to disturb the plants and silt while remembering to breathe. Don't forget the key reason we're in the water - manatee. Now they're all cute and cuddly on postcards and in cartoons but get in the water and you realize that 700+ pounds of mammal can be mildly intimidating. So you're floating like a cork looking down, when all of a sudden this gray-white mass comes into view through the murk and crosses your view like the shadow of Jaws beside that dingy. This is your moment to decide: is this really fun?

Wendy said the first time she realized the enormity of these animals, she panicked a bit. When you find yourself above them and they decide to surface for air, you do feel a certain need to flail away as fast as you can. Then you realize, they could not care less about you. Their sheer mass will move you gently out of their way. They reach their noses up, grab a quick breath, and sink back slowly to their grazing on the bottom. It's kind of like petting a cow.

In that bay we followed around three of them in a cat-n-mouse game. They'd surface here and we'd paddle over to watch them for a moment and then they'd somehow disappear and resurface over there. This went on for about 20 minutes. Think the manatee find it funny, since they don't have fangs to annoy us.

Back on the boat to find happier sea cows. A five minute - just out of the bay ride - and we're in this channel when some are spotted. Back in the water to play hide-n-seek (by law it's "harassment" to chase them or grab them or to anyone infringe upon their rights as behemoths). By this point, Wendy's fingers were turning blue and Deacon was shivering like we were in the Arctic. The water was cool but not frigid. Think the extended time in the water without really swimming (noodles were provided and you mostly glided along the water with your wetsuit providing buoyancy) didn't help. Plus, a wetsuit keeps you wet. So even back on the boat, the sun didn't get to warm you up well.

We pushed on headed toward the Crystal River. This time we got about 200, maybe 300 yards, when snouts were spotted. Back in the water we go. This time we're in the middle of the "channel" where the Crystal River meets Kings Bay and I doubt it was 8 feet deep anywhere. Never seen anything like it but it was much clearer than the other areas we'd been. From the boat, you could almost see to the bottom everywhere. I could stand on sandbars that were 4 feet deep and look around for the hulking masses. This time we found what seemed like 2 moms and 2 calves. Menatees don't hang around womenfolk or kids - at least the husbands don't. So far, we'd been able to reach out and touch the gentle giants as they fed and surfaced but here we had a crazy, cosmic encounter.

The calf in this pair (tot was only 450 pounds) slowed a bit and started eyeing me a bit. I'd give a backscratch every now and then. Then he'd get his face closer. Not like you're looking at a whale's eye. More like a bulldog with that wrinkly face. Tiny eyes but you could tell he was curious. Then he followed me for a bit, then he actually turned and looked at me straight on. Wendy said she thought we were going to kiss. I can assure you if that was his/her decision, my desires would not have mattered. Kissed I would have been. But alas, I remain a frog. No princess kissed me today but the odd "connection" I'll remember forever. Of course, then she did the same thing with everyone else. Slut! But I was FIRST! Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah!

So the whole thing took about 3 hours and it was well worth it. If you ever want to try this, I highly recommend it. These Crystal River Manatee Tour and Dive folks were great.

We were so pumped up we drove 90 minutes to a Golden Corral in Perry, Florida to load up on carbs and carbs and carbs. Being bloated and pruney we figured we might as well head on down the road as nothing in Perry seemed interesting. To Appalachicola we went. Just after sundown we made it and a beautiful, quiet, speed-filled drive it was. The Best Western welcomed us with open arms and even told us how to get to our destination tomorrow - the Indian Pass Raw Bar. Happy Manatee Dreams to you all!