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Today we were up before the sun came up to go into King Spring, at Banana Island, to look for manatees. 6:45 AM - We start to get ready to kayak to Banana Island. We kayak from our base just as the sun is coming up. It is about 1.2 miles to kayak from our base to Banana Island. We are wearing our wet suits and Lotus Designs PFD's. On our Cobra Tourer kayaks we are carrying two kayak anchors, a compass, our Magellan GPS unit, a pair of compact binoculars, a secchi disk and plumb line, two water sample bottles, a dry bag with towels inside, the Nikon N90s still film camera, two underwater cameras, two underwater strobes, the Sony Mavica digital camera in its Sea & Sea underwater housing, our weight belts, and, of course, our U.S. Divers masks, fins, and snorkels...And with all this stuff the Cobra kayaks still float! It takes us about 35 minutes to paddle to Banana Island and King Spring. As we are anchoring our kayaks we notice the tourist boats are starting to leave. That can be good or bad. It can mean we will have the manatees all to ourselves. It can also mean that the manatees have all left and there are no more manatees to see. The air is not cold, so we think everyone is leaving because the manatees are all gone. We anchor near the edge of the manatee sanctuary and look for manatees. Yep! They've all left. For coffee and donuts, or at least the manatee version of coffee and donuts (a drink of water and some tasty aquatic plants). Karen and I swim around the springs. Fortunately after most of the boats and people are gone some of the manatees come back to the springs. Since the surrounding water is also warm the manatees do not always stay in the springs. The manatees are in a little deeper water, just in front of the springs. One friendly female manatee comes over for us to scratch her. She rolls over so we can scratch her belly and her back. She lifts her head so I can scratch under her big double chins. We scratch her all over for a long time. Suddenly I feel a manatee give me a big bump right in my back. I thought it wanted to get me to scratch it. I turned around to look and found out there was a manatee behind me, but he was not there to have me scratch him...He wanted me out of there. The manatee I was scratching was a cute, unattached female, with no calves. The manatee that bumped me was a boy and he wanted this female as his girlfriend. This was the first time I had ever experienced a manatee acting in any sort of aggressive manner. The male did not try to hurt me, but he did want to push me away, so he could have this female's full attention. The male rubbed his face on her back and touched her back with his flippers. The female, though was not interested. She turned her back to him and swam away with the male following. The next time I saw her she was feeding on some underwater plants growing on a rope and the male was still bugging her. I think she just wanted to be left alone. After their snack the manatees went off for a nap. We went back to our kayaks and left to explore Banana Island. We were well dressed to explore Banana Island. There on no trails here. The ground is wet, soft and muddy. Where we pulled up our boats, if you stepped in the wrong place, you could sink up to your knees in the slimy mud. The plants covering this island made it a dense jungle. The island is surrounded by tall (5 feet high) grasses, called saw grass. I found out why they call them "saw" grass. The edges of the blades are rough, like a saw, and we you walk through them they saw into your skin. (Luckily our wet suits protect our skin from the saw grass.)The plants here included different kinds of palm trees, ferns, moss, lichen, oak trees, hickory trees, and locust trees. We didn't see any alligators or snakes, but we did us many small spiders with their webs between branches (I walked into a couple of them.). The only animals we saw were different species of birds, including the blue herons, snowy egrets, mallard ducks, brown pelicans, and double crested cormormants. After spending time exploring Banana Island, and seeing some of the plants and animals that share the manatees ecosystem, it was time for us to return to base and get ready for our next exciting day to learn more about manatees! |
This is my new girlfriend. (That is Karen's hand scratching her head.
She loves me to scratch her belly!
My girlfriend is letting me scratch her belly, but ignoring the male trying to get her attention.
Welcome to Banana Island, but watch your step! (The saw grasses are in the water behind our Cobra kayaks.)
I found this cool tree. The trunk makes both an arch you can walk under and a seat you can sit on. (I am about 10 feet off the ground.) TODAY'S DATA King Spring Magellan GPS Location: |
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Day 7
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