Crystal River, Florida Manatees – February 2014

Manatee checking me out.

I LOVE manatees. Advanced dive training took us to northern Florida during the winter, so we took the chance to snorkel with manatees on the Homosassa river, which was an incredible experience. These are wild manatees who choose to come up and interact with you (you don’t go to them) and they were incredibly inquisitive and friendly!

They are so cute I can’t stand it!	Each manatee has very unique skin.	Surrounded by amazing animals!

Just chillin’ out.	Cuteness.	More cuteness.	Some of them loved to be touched!

We went on our snorkeling tour with American Pro diving center, which I’d highly recommend!  There were only a few people with us, the staff was incredibly nice, and the boat ride was wonderful.

http://americanprodive.com/manateesnorkeltours.php

We also rented kayaks and paddled around Crystal River ourselves, where you can get out and swim if you want – it was a lot of fun but very busy/congested even in the off season.

We dove Blue Grotto as well, which was really neat. It was our first semi-cavern dive and the air bell underwater was neat to see. I hope we can make it back and explore the area more in the future!