Manatee at 3-Sisters Springs Crystal River, FL

Took the cousin's canoe out for the afternoon in Crystal River. Paddled over to 3 Sisters Springs, and watched this young Manatee swim around for an hour. He left then came back after a short time to do it all again.

I believe this is the only county in Florida where it is not illegal to touch manatees. You are only allowed to use 1 hand (they will roll over for a belly rub if they have an itch), and only if they come to you. You aren't allowed to go into certain roped-off sanctuary areas, and can't do really stupid stuff like separate a mother from its calf.

There are many tour operators who take a boatload of 30 people or so out. They spend 20 minutes all getting off the boat, surround a manatee, scare it off, and spend another 20 minutes getting back on the boat. It really freaks them out.

On this day, I was just there on my own. But we have gone out several times with a tour operator we happened to luck out finding. Captain Traci at http://www.nativevacations.com only takes small tours of up to 6 people max. She is very conscious of "doing it right", and will take you to the places that are not overpacked with other tours. (This is not a paid advertisement or anything. She doesn't even know I'm putting this here).

This was the 1st time I have used our waterproof camera housing on our little Canon point & shoot. It works pretty well, though I need to get used to making it less herky-jerky while under water. I still have a bunch more footage to put together, but this was most of the manatee footage.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Manatee
• Crystal River
• 3 sisters springs
• Florida
• native vacations

[liapia80]

just curious what the thing on the manatees' tail is??? anyone know?

[NomadRip]

@liapia80 It's a radio tracker the Rangers put on it. It breaks off real easy if they get it caught on something, so it can't drown them.

[RJSlater]

awesome vid! Had to turn down the audio after awhile, but great footage.

[NomadRip]

@RJSlater Yeah that underwater sound does hurt the ears. I'll work on getting better with the editing in a real program this year :-D

[oibrjeff]

I swam here when I visited America but unfortunately it was summer so there were no manatees.

[positiveworldtravel]

wow, amazing video!