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Let me explain how our "days" work. Since we have to show you what happened during our day, you are a day behind us. On Monday, we told you about setting up so you would know that our expedition was just gearing up. Normally, on Monday we will show you what we did on Friday, plus any interesting things that happened over the weekend. On Tuesday you will see our Monday experiences, and so on, for each school day, Monday through Friday. We were going crazy today with our Internet service. Our site was turned on Thursday afternoon last week. I checked it just before we left home on Friday and it was working fine, even without a password. This morning, I tried to get onto our expedition site and couldn't. I had to wait until noon our time (9 AM California time), get contact our service provider. After looking into the problem the Internet guy realized he had made a mistake with the password protection so no one could get on! Unfortunately, he did not have it completely fixed until mid-afternoon. We apologize to all of you. I have sent the Internet guy to bed without supper and I am not going to let him play computer games for a week! Manatee sunset. By the time we had the Internet guy fix his mistake, it was late in the afternoon for us. Unfortunately, the best time to see manatees is in the morning. When the temperature warms up the manatee leave the springs and feed in other areas. Fortunately, we found out we can see manatees at sunset. A friend told us about this. This friend and his wife have a business where they takes tourists to swim with manatees! He said that the manatees will come back to the springs just before sunset. I zoomed back the lodge were we are staying, and Karen and I paddled our Cobra kayaks out to look for manatees at sunset. We paddled to one our favorite places, Three Sisters Springs. I was paddling ahead of Karen, so I got there first. As soon as I got there I saw a baby manatee right under my kayak! Then I saw the mother. Then I saw what I guess might be the father. They all got together. The father lead the way, followed by the mother and calf, to swim in the spring to find a place to sleep for the night. More fun things are coming up! While we were waiting for our Internet problem to be corrected, I took care of other things for our expedition. Tomorrow, Day 3, we will introduce you to some manatee reseachers. You will join us to find out what these researchers are doing to help manatees. Day 6, we be underwater with manatees at Homassassa Springs State Park. We will meet manatees here that are being cared for since they can not survive on their own in the wild. You, your class, or your whole school can even adopt one of the Homassassa Springs manatees! At this park you will also meet some of the other animals that live in this ecosystem. Sometime this week or next week we will spend a day with a manatee refuge biologist. You will see what her job is like. Maybe after seeing what the job is like, you would like to have that as your job. Sometime soon we will be visiting a local elementary school and meet some of the students. We will find out what they think about manatees. |
Here is the manatee calf that was waiting for me under my kayak.
The mother manatee comes up for a breath. (The sun is setting and it is getting darker underwater.)
As the sun sets the male, mother and calf swims farther back into the springs for the night. (See the mother nuzzling the tail of the male. The calf is tagging along.) PHOTOS TAKEN SO FAR |
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Day 2
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