Tag: wildlife

Swimming with Manatees

Our detour to Crystal River to swim with manatees was just under 24 hours long but, for me, was one of the best experiences that we have had so far.

Crystal River is a small river in Florida running into the Gulf and is home to a small population of endangered manatees all year round. During the winter, when it gets colder, there can be up to 400 living in the river, during summer months, there are about 25 adults and babies staying in the bays.

Our day started around 6am and, once we were fitted out with wetsuits and snorkel gear we were out on the boat with our guide in time for a gorgeous sunrise.

After about 35 minutes we stopped alongside 5 or 6 swimmers who were watching a mother and her calf playing in the water, we joined them for a few minutes and did manage to see them both, but having been in the same place for a while, they moved on (that’s the nice version, the more honest one is that Jon ‘interacted’ with a manatee by accidentally kicking it, then they swam away…) so we went down river to three amazingly clear pools/springs, called the Three Sisters – I managed to get some photos of an underwater crater filled with trees with Robin & Esperanza’s camera which they kindly left with us but the crater was too deep to take the camera down when I dived into it, so the crabs I disturbed didn’t get to have their photos taken.

As we took the boat further to look for more manatees, we found Cici, a small male recently returned to the wild from captivity; he has a small buoy attached to his tail and is being monitored to see how he behaves in the wild, so no one is allowed to swim near him, in case these behaviours are altered. Our guide then took us into a bay where, to my delight, we found four manatees, three adults and a calf, just floating about (that’s pretty much all manatees do, float and eat!). The water was really quite murky but I swam in their vague direction and then just floated (as we were told to, manatees are meant to approach you, not the other way around) After a few minutes the river bed appeared to move under me and a manatee’s back came into view – it was a little like a ‘magic eye’ picture, suddenly the floor had shape and was swimming!

Adult manatees weigh up to 2000 lbs and they certainly made me feel very small and ungainly as they swam around. The white marks you can see in the photos are scars from boat propellers; they all have them, even the little calf, even though the rules for boats on the river are pretty strict. Fortunately, most propeller injuries heal and don’t seem to cause too many problems at slow speeds (keel injuries are another matter, hence the strict speed limits).

After stroking the backs of two of the adults as they hovered near me, I couldn’t believe it when the little calf suddenly appeared in front of me and nudged me in a similar way to the way a dog will head butt you to get attention. I stroked down its back and it promptly rolled over and presented its belly for a rub! We’d been told that they were remarkably affectionate and inquisitive, but to actually see it was quite amazing.

I have a few pictures of the calf – the one with it’s nose very close to the camera wasn’t using zoom; 2 seconds later it headbutted my hand, then my mask. This was extremely cute but a little nerve-wracking, it may have only been a small calf but was still about 8ft long and a much better swimmer than me.

By the time the manatees swam off I could no longer feel my hands or feet (even with a wet suit it was really cold) so we decided to spend the rest of our tour time going out to the entrance to the Gulf and to an islands there called Shell Island, which did appear to be made entirely of shells. Beautiful views and huge banana spiders – some things I won’t miss when we come home!

Back at the hotel we slept for a few hours and then drove about 180 miles towards Washington – we’ve got a little behind because of moving our trip to Crystal River to after Orlando (we meant to go before but Labor Day weekend meant everything was booked up) which means we have a 700 mile drive to Washington tomorrow (Monday) to get us back on track. Good thing I have such a lovely chauffeur!

 

 

Discovery Cove

On Wednesday we got to go back to Discovery Cove in Orlando.

It was a fairly early start again but it’s worth getting there early so you can fit everything in. We started by visiting the aviary and feeding the birds and had a swim round the lazy river. Robin and Esp had bought their underwater camera which is much better than the rubbish disposable one we used last time we went so we got some cool photos on the lazy river.

Before our dolphin swim we spent some time snorkelling in the Grand Reef which has been expanded since the last time we went. It’s full of huge manta rays and thousands of tropical fish, not to mention the sharks and barracudas which are (obviously) behind glass.

We finished with our dolphin swim and another go round the lazy river. The dolphin swim was with two dolphins who showed us some great tricks and posed for some photos with us (to follow, once I get near a scanner). Our second dolphin was Jenny, who actually “proposed” to Jen for me two years ago so it was pretty cool to see her again.

I think it goes without saying that Discovery Cove is one of our favourite places in the world and I think Robin and Esp had a great day too.

Enjoy the photos. Tomorrow, Disney World!

 

 

 

Theatre of the Sea

We’ve managed to escape the clutches of tropical storm Lee, although it was fairly close. The rain was so heavy as we left New Orleans that I couldn’t even see the white lines on the road in front of the car and that was just on the outskirts of a storm that was at least 100 miles away. Parts of the gulf coast have had up to 20 inches of rain in the 2 days since we left so it sounds like we got out in time. It sounds like New Orleans has weathered the storm well though, to be honest the locals were barely batting an eyelid at the prospect of a storm that size.

Anyway, on to happier things, after a night in Tampa on Friday and Key Largo last night we’re in Key West now, the most southerly point in the US, and today we took a trip to the Theatre of the Sea .

The main attraction at Theatre of the Sea is the chance to swim with dolphins. However, we’re doing that again in Orlando next week so we opted to take a swim with a sealion called Mimi. Once again we were lucky enough to be the only two people in our group so got to spend more time than normal swimming and posing with Mimi. We were both surprised how much she felt and behaved just like a labrador! Unlike dolphins, Sealions have short hair and they’re more playful. We both had a great time, especially Jen who’s been grinning ever since.

Despite it being a national holiday here and all the hotels being booked up we keep being told how dead the tourism industry in the US is this season. The economy here is in a terrible state and most of their tourism is internal so wherever we go it feels like we’re the only ones here and we’re getting good deals and no queues everywhere, which is nice for us at least.

 

 

Whale Watching in Vancouver Island

Another early start this morning and after having our trip cancelled yesterday we were glad to get on the boat for our whale watching trip with Prince of Whales (yes, that really is what the tour company is called).

It takes about 2 hours to get from Downtown Vancouver to the straight between the mainland and Vancouver Island . There are hundreds of small islands in the strait which host a variety of wildlife including seals and eagles so we spent a while sailing around between them and taking a few snaps.

The captain of the boat had been on the radio to the other tour boats and they’d located a pod of about 80 Orca whales (although that would have been made up of many smaller groups of 4 or 5 whales), so we headed south into more open water to see them.

Seeing whales in the wild is incredibly impressive, but they don’t like having their photo taken. They spend most of their time underwater, coming up briefly every couple of minutes for air and the boats aren’t allowed within 200ft of them, so getting photos is hard. Having said that, at one point the whales decided to swim towards us and the only thing the captain can do when that happens is switch off the engine and wait for them to pass by. At this point a couple of whales surfaced about 50ft from the boat and then swam right underneath us which was hugely exciting.

After seeing the whales the boat carried on to Vancouver Island and docked at Victoria which is the capital of British Columbia. Victoria is a lovely place and we could have spent more time there than the hour we had, but the trip included a drive to Buchart Gardens , about 40 minutes drive from the capital, so we left after lunch.

I’m not the biggest fan of horticulture, but the gardens were very impressive and probably the most relaxing thing we’ve done in the last 3 weeks. It also gave me a chance to practice my photography on something that wasn’t moving.

Our day ended with the boat picking us up from a small cove next to the gardens and a 2 hour ride back to Vancouver. We weren’t the only ones on the boat that wanted to sleep on the way back. The Seattle/Whistler/Vancouver area is another area I’d like to revisit in the future, you can’t move for amazing scenery and there’s so much to do we could easily fill another 2 weeks here.

 

 

 

Paddle & Saddle

We spent our last day in Yellowstone doing a “Paddle and Saddle” day with The Flying Pig   Rafting Company. A horse back trail ride in the morning and white water rafting in the afternoon.

I haven’t ridden a horse or rafted before and Jen has only ridden a horse a few time. Luckily, they were both pretty tame.

The trail ride was a slow trek through some amazing countryside. I think they put us on really old horses who were incapable of bolting even if they’d wanted to. Mine seemed more interested in stopping to eat some flowers every couple of minutes than misbehaving itself.

In the afternoon we got to have a go at white water rafting on the Yellowstone river. Again, it was fairly slow, which suited me fine. I’d chosen not to wear a wetsuit because I didn’t realise how cold the water was going to be so I’m fairly glad I didn’t leave the raft. Jen was wearing a wetsuit though and seemed happy to jump off the raft and swim about. I promise I didn’t push her…

I’m going to miss Yellowstone but I’m sure we’ll come back. I’ve been bitten by every insect in the park and the rafting has given me pain in back muscles I didn’t know I had, but it was well worth it.

Tonight we’re in Spokane in Washington and hopefully by tomorrow night we’ll be in Seattle .

 

Yellowstone Safari

Yesterday was our third day in Yellowstone Park and we were booked onto a private guided tour with Safari Yellowstone .

Most of the wildlife in the park wakes up at an ungodly hour, which meant that we had to too. Our guide picked us up from our motel at 5:45 and we headed into the north end of the park.

The light at sunrise makes for some great photo opportunities and during the first couple of hours we saw deer, elk, pronghorn, lots of bison and thanks to the supplied binoculars and spotting scopes we were able to watch an osprey nest from afar. We watched for about half an hour as the mother looked after her two chicks and kept lookout while she waited for the male to return.

Our guide said that normally he would take guests up to a mountain lake to watch the otters that were usually around at this time of year but it was a bit of a hike and he hadn’t seen them so far this year so he decided to push on and try to find us a grizzly bear.

We didn’t have to drive far. The traffic jam after a couple of miles gave away the fact that there was an adult grizzly about 150 away from the side of the road. That’s a fair distance but as you can see below I managed to get a few photos. They’re fairly low quality because I was on maximum zoom but I wouldn’t have wanted to get any closer,our guide said the bear could cover that distance in under 10 seconds!

The hardest animals to spot in Yellowstone are the wolves. They were reintroduced into the park in 1995 and there are only around 120 in a park covering over 2 million acres. Add to this the fact that they don’t like humans and tend to stay away from the roads and you’ll understand why sightings are rare. Our guide took us to a few spots where they tend to hang out and managed to speak to one of the foremost wolf biologists in the park but it was looking unlikely. There had been sightings that morning and lots of people were waiting for one in particular to return but we could have spent our whole tour waiting so we decided to push on and see some more of the park.

After a picnic lunch by the river we saw some mountain goats (from over half a mile away so no photos) and ground squirrels, which are kind of a cross between grey squirrels and meerkats.

So, the tour was over and we were on our way back towards our Motel when our guide spotted his boss in a lay-by and pulled over to get some info. It turns out that his boss had been up to the trout lake where the otters hang out and they were back! The guide swung the car round and drove us back to the foot of the trail. We hiked up the short (but steep) trail to the mountain lake and sure enough we found 3 otters swimming and fishing by the side of the lake. We followed them around the lake for half an hour or so and managed to get some nice photos of them playing and eating lunch.

Unfortunately our time was up and after nine hours, which seemed like about one, we headed back to our motel. We won’t be forgetting today in a hurry.