Today we headed to Crystal River to swim with the manatees.  
While waiting to board the boat we looked around and spotted the kayak launching area.  The are really cool and easy to launch from.






Also on the way over we spotted a small herd of buffalo. 

Rog has donned his wet suit.  I do not like them so I just went in a la bathing suit.

On the boat on the way to the springs we spotted these turtles sunning on a log stick.

These pix were taken from the boat.

mom and baby

 West Indian manatees are large, gray aquatic mammals with bodies that taper to a flat, paddle-shaped tail. They have two forelimbs, called flippers, with three to four nails on each flipper. Their head and face are wrinkled with whiskers on the snout. The manatee's closest relatives are the elephant and the hyrax (a small, gopher-sized mammal). 

Manatees are gentle and slow-moving animals. Most of their time is spent eating, resting, and traveling. Manatee are mostly herbivorous, however small fish and invertebrates can sometimes be ingested along with a manatee’s normal vegetation diet.

The following are pix using our underwater camera. 


 
 

These are pix of us in the water.  We swam in the Crystal River then up into the Three Sisters Spring.  We were told more manatees here.  We did see manatees, but the best part was the spring was warmer, 72 degrees.

  baby closely following mom.

manatee tail

 


Coming up for air



Notice the fish feeding off the goodies on the manatee's back.

 
Sleeping on the bottom





So cute!  We had a wonderful day.  You should put this on your bucket list.