Magnificent Manatees of Florida

[spt29970]

Last week I had to go to a tradeshow in Orlando. I decided to go a day early and do something fun. I drove from Orlando to Crystal River and went snorkeling with the Manatees in the springs. Even though the Florida Manatee is endangered and there are only about 3000 left in the wild, you have a good chance to see them in Crystal River in winter. Manatees are very temperature sensitive, so during the winter the Manatee congregate in the springs, which are comparatively warm. This winter has been particularly cold, so in the Three Sister's Spring, we saw at least 75!

If you ever get a chance to do this, I highly recommend it. I went with "Bird's Underwater", who runs a professional, respectful operation. Here are a few of my images from a morning with the Manatees. Click on the images for more details.

Enjoy!

 

[alijtaylor]

Great photos Steve, I love the reflections. They are so endearing..

Alison

 

[Charlie59]

Very nice!

 

[boogs]

beautiful shots!

 

[deeper thoughts]

Thnx for the pix

 

[fairybasslet]

Very nice shots.

 

[oceanbound]

great shots! thanks for sharing. I've been looking into swiming with the manatees so i'm going to look into there operation.

 

[scubaskipper]

Awesome shots. It sounds like from your comments about each photo that you gave the animals the space and respect they deserved, good on ya. This has been a hard winter for them.

 

[spt29970]

Thx. I try

 

[haeussf]

Nice shots. Thanks for sharing.