Check out our new friend at the fuel dock!  First time for any of us to see a Florida Manatee up so close.

To add to the vast array of wildlife we have been seeing from Muddy Waters, along came a Florida Manatee.  We were filling up the water tanks in Marathon before our trip the next day and along came this guy looking for a drink.  Apparently they really love to drink fresh water, so the hose in our aft cockpit was the perfect magnet for this big guy!  Not sure if we were filling or emptying the tanks faster!  As we learned afterwards, it is not a good idea to “water” the manatees because it makes them more likely to approach boats – definitely not in their best interest, unless of course you have a boat with two kids who would gladly dump overboard all of mom’s organic salad greens to feed the manatee a nice lunch!  No, that didn’t happen, but would have served us right because as all of us are aware, they are frequently injured by boaters who drive too fast around inland waterways.  Manatees are slow moving animals; they lumber along like big sea cows, unable to move fast enough out of the way of an approaching speed boat.   So we learned our lesson–no more messing with mother nature, but it sure was an amazing encounter and I am sure you will enjoy seeing the short video we posted under the video clips.

Jen