Manatee Boat Tour

(My foot is doing better. As confirmed by Doctor Maggie this morning: she usually rubs on my feet but has been avoiding that foot recently, and this morning she was back to it, so it must be healing. In fact, Wednesday was the low point, and although Thursday was a bad day for me, that had more to do with work than foot pain, so yay for that. As for the steroids, I have had a few moments of rage that even I could tell were out of proportion, but nothing too scary, and I take the last pill Monday morning, so it seems to have been worth it.)

So, back to the story! We took a boat tour when my brother was here, a new one to us, that all-but-guaranteed we'd see manatees. I have caught tiny glimpses of manatees on other boat rides, but more of the "oh, there it was, did you see it, oops it's gone now" variety than actually clear sightings.

Ready for the photo dump? It was a beautiful day. 

This company does small groups, not all on one bigger boat, so it was just us and two other people on the boat (which probably had room for 8-10 passengers). The captain was informative and very funny.

I also thought it was nice that they gave us polarized sunglasses to wear; they made a surprising difference in the glare off the water! I might have to get some of those.

A little hard to tell, but there's a bird on the dock in the middle of this.

Headless bird.

See Santa's sleigh and the snowman on top of the boat? 

And now it's time for the parade of gators. Apparently they were all up warming themselves in the sun. The idea of stepping out to your yard and encountering these creeped me out.

One:

Two:

Oh, and three, above and parallel to the water.

See?

Four:

Five:

There were more, but those are the best photos. They're not small, are they? Good thing none of them moved suddenly, I'm sure I would have embarrassed myself by jumping (not off the boat, just startling away from the motion).

Next we started looking around for the manatees. Which at first involved studying the ripples and shadows.

Fruitlessly at first, but then, hints.

Ah ha! A mother and baby, he said.

See them?

It was pretty darned cool. Even though that day was when I got stung by the bee, it was still a good day.