Today we had booked to do the “Ultimate Tour”, from River
Ventures, mild to wild. We arrived at the River ventures shop/reception area where
we were fitted out with flippers and wet suits and then shown a short video about
the protocol involved when swimming with the manatees. We then headed off to
the marina nearby and hopped on a lovely boat with our guide, Sheena and our
captain, Mariah. (We told Rob that we had asked for these 2 lovely ladies just
for his birthday.) It was only the 4 of us doing this tour which can take up to
6. Our captain said that we were going to head out to the Gulf of Mexico to do
the scalloping first as the weather report showed that there could be a
thunderstorm in the latter part of the day and she wanted us back in Crystal
River before it hit. We travelled for about an hour out into the bay and the
weather was perfect. Sunny, flat calm seas. Sheena went through the “nuts and
bolts” of scalloping and then took us into the water and showed us how to dive
for the scallops. We had goggles, snorkels and flippers and a bag to carry the
scallops in. I had decided that I was just going to snorkel and enjoy watching
the fish, stingrays and sea-stars etc. because of my ear problem but in the end
I couldn’t resist. Although I didn’t get as many scallops as the others I really
enjoyed the experience of diving in 8-10 feet of water for them, so much so
that after about 90 minutes, I was being called back to the boat. Mariah had
seen a huge thunderstorm approaching. This was not the one forecast and she
said we needed to head back into the river area. Our path took us straight into
the tropical thunderstorm! Heading back
in we experienced lashing rain, huge lightning strikes, thunder and even a few
white caps…..where had our beautiful day gone? We all started humming and singing
the theme song from Gilligan’s Island. Once back in the safety of springs/lake
system the weather had calmed significantly and Sheena was happy to take us
diving for with the manatees before the next predicted thunderstorm arrived. We
put our wet-suits on, mainly to allow us to float easily and had this
incredible experience of being in the water with them. We had to just float
round on our stomachs, not make any sudden movements and just watch them
feeding. They are huge! We stayed very still and both of the manatees we saw
came very close to us. We had a fantastic day!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment