This was the day we had been waiting for all week! Earlier in the week we made special arrangements with Ms. Susan Dougherty , the Information Specialist at the Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park, to go in the water and swim with their resident manatees. Susan does not allow just anyone to swim with the manatees at the park. You have to have a very good reason. And we did. We were given permission because we are telling all of you about manatees! Susan is really pleased that all of you are so interested in learning about these endangered animals. She even assigned a special park ranger to help us and take care of us today. His name is Ranger Mike Hogan and he loves his job at the park. He was very friendly and helpful to us. He helped us carry our cameras and our snorkeling equipment to the little dock at the park. He even took our picture while we were getting ready and while we were in the water. Being in the water with the captive manatees is a lot like being in the water with the ones in the wild, except that these captive manatees are even more lovable. They are not afraid of people at all and just want to hug you with their flippers. Also, they really want you to scratch them! In fact, I think I spent more time scratching them than I did taking their pictures! Every once in a while I would look up and see lots of visitors to the park watching us swimming with the manatees. One group of school children came and watched us. They were pre-kindergarteners from Northwest Elementary School in Hudson, Florida. Hudson is a small town right on the Gulf of Mexico about 30 miles south of Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park. Those little children were so cute in their red T-shirts and they were having a wonderful time seeing all of the animals, especially the manatees! I took a picture of some of them. (See their picture below.) When we first got in the water, the manatees were in the salad bar (see the picture) but when they realized we were there, four of them came out to see us. We were in the water for one hour. Then Ranger Mike said it was time to get out of the water because another ranger was doing a manatee talk for the visitors in the park. He wanted the manatees to go over to that ranger so the visitors could see them better. It was OK with us because it was time to change film, plus...we were getting kind of tired of scratching the manatees' backs! After the ranger talk, we got back in the water. But this time I had a BIG problem. I had not put the housing on the digital camera properly and immediately water started to seep in. So I had to get out of the water right away and take the camera out and dry it. Then I had to tell Wayne what happened. But I waited until it was time for him to get out of the water. Since Wayne is a "jack-of-all-trades" I knew he could fix it...and he did! (See his journal.) If we dadn't had that problem with the camera we would have walked around the park. There are lots of beautiful birds there like flamingos and great egrets. There are birds of prey like the red shouldered hawk and owls. They have deer, alligators, snakes, otters, and even a panther. All of these animals are native to Florida. Maybe we will have a chance on another day to spend more time there and show you pictures of the other animals that are a part of the ecosystem here in Florida.
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Pre-kindergartners and their teachers say "cheese" for our camera. They are from Northwest Elementary School in Hudson, FL.
Ranger Mike snapped my picture while I was getting ready to put on my snorkeling equipment. The rectangle in the background is the floating salad bar with vegetables in it for the manatees to eat. You can see the back of one manatee in there. Behind the salad bar is the floating observation area. It goes down below the surface of the water and there are steps you can go down to see the manatees underwater.
One of the manatees swims out of the salad bar to greet her new visitors...us! Is that smile on her face because she is happy to see us or is it because she just finished a nice, big meal? |
Day 6
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