DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Tailgate Forum Attack of the Sea Cows!

I have to share this cool experience with you all, especially due to the popular topic on this board.

I lived in the Tampa area for 9 years. Now I find myself in Montgomery, AL and I had a three day break. This was my first extended time off this semester so I finally took off to Tampa for some relaxation. We had to do the 8 hour drive back to Montgomery on Easter Sunday but decided to go to the beach for one last dip in the gulf.

We entered the beach through a private entrance so there were only a few people near us. After we got into the water, we looked to our right to find a huge crowd in the water about a quarter of a mile away. There were families taking pictures and you could see some slight splashing. We just automatically assumed that some church was doing mass baptisms in the Gulf of Mexico. It isn't a common sight, but I have seen it a few times and it just seemed to make sense with it being on Easter Sunday.

Then the group left the water and started walking towards us. We weren't sure where they were going since the public parking would have been the other direction but they just seemed to be walking. Nobody was pointing or searching in the water or anything suspicious, they were just walking.

Suddenly when they were equal with us, a manatee poked his head out of the water 5 feet away from us. Suddenly the people all rushed back into the water and 5 manatees were suddenly playing all around us. Now I've heard of stories of how people like to jump into the water to swim with manatees but never about them actually coming to you in the wild. These guys were just loving the attention and just stuck around for 30 minutes before adventuring back out into the water.

Our theory was that these guys were rescues and used to humans. Supposedly several manatees and dolphins were re-released a month ago so it seems plausible. Prior to this, the closest I've ever been in the wild was when one surfaced next to our boat as we were fishing, looked at us, and then moved on. I've never seen them enjoy company with humans so much. We tried to keep our distance since this isn't necessarily behavior that you want to encourage with them but people were petting them and everything.

I've never seen anything like it before. Definitely was a once in a lifetime experience. So watch out, the Sea Cows are starting their evil plot of world domination!

So cool to swim with a living fossil! Congrats!