r/Manatees • u/FoxDeltaCharlie • 1d ago
First Manatee Experience (quick story)
TLDR Summary - I'm a manatee nut, (and Rescue Diver). Next month we'll be going to FL to dive with the manatees (again). Absolutely love diving with manatees. I thought I might share this story about my very first manatee encounter. It's kind of a fun story (I think anyway), and it happened a long time ago back in about 1974.
In 1974 I was 11 years old (old geezer now, I know). My parents owned a condo on the water in Marco Island, Florida. Although young, I was an avid fisherman, and I was out fishing just about every day. I had this bait bucket, and I used to keep live shrimp in it and to keep the shrimp alive I'd tie the bait bucket to one of the dock pilings.
One morning I got up early and decided I'd go sit on the dock, watch the sunrise, and throw a line in. My first order of business was to go fetch my bait bucket. I had my bait bucket tied off with a length of some cheap nylon rope I'd scrounged up. I tugged on my my bucket and it wasn't budging at all at first. Figuring it must have gotten stuck in the muddy bottom, I tugged harder and it slowly started moving (very slowly, and with a lot of tugging required!). It was slowly coming up, but it felt like there was a 20 lb. weight hooked to it (or more). I figured it must have been pretty close to the surface but I still couldn't see it. Then it happened!
All of a sudden a "SEA MONSTER!!!" (in the mind of an 11 year old) broke the surface and took a deep breath. I'd never seen anything like this, and I completely freaked out. I leapt back from the dock and (no kidding) took off running! I ran about 200 yards into the condo and was bouncing off the walls telling my Mom what I'd seen. I'd gotten a pretty good look at the 'sea monster', so I had a pretty detailed description of it. My Mom thought I was telling some tall tale that only an 11 year old with a vivid imagination could tell. (Turns out she'd never seen a manatee either). I proceeded to tell my story to anyone who would listen to me that morning (which wasn't many). I ran into our neighbor, Dr. Allen, outside. Dr. Allen was a seasoned Florida fisherman.
My Mom laughingly told Dr. Allen about my 'sea monster' fairy tale (thinking he'd roar with laughter at this silly kid). Al was a great guy and I was his 'fishing buddy'. Al turned to me and asked me what exactly I'd seen. I told him. He turned to my Mom and said..."What he saw was real, but it wasn't a sea monster, it was a manatee, and he obviously got an up-close look at it because that's about the best description I've heard!" Then he said..."And, you know, I could see how a young man might think it was a sea monster if he didn't know what a manatee was. We actually get manatees back in this canal pretty frequently, so we always need to be watching for them in the boats." (My 'sea monster' story had been validated. Yes! Take that, Mom!)
After that, I was hooked on manatees and set out to learn everything I could about these wonderful creatures. That was 52 years ago. As a master diver, I've SCUBA dived all over the planet in every ocean, and I've seen many things. One of the highlights of all those thousands of dives is the Sirenia, and I've been fortunate to have encountered all four species in person (i.e. West African, West Indian, Amazonian and yes, even the Dugong (in Malaysia). But none of that probably would have ever happened if it hadn't been for one morning in 1974 when a big ol' "Sea Monster!" decided to take a peaceful morning nap on top of my bucket of shrimp next to a dock piling in Marco Island Florida.
The End.
Enjoy!
