Last week I had to go to a tradeshow in Orlando. I decided to go a day early and do something fun. I drove from Orlando to Crystal River and went snorkeling with the Manatees in the springs. Even though the Florida Manatee is endangered and there are only about 3000 left in the wild, you have a good chance to see them in Crystal River in winter. Manatees are very temperature sensitive, so during the winter the Manatee congregate in the springs, which are comparatively warm. This winter has been particularly cold, so in the Three Sister's Spring, we saw at least 75!
If you ever get a chance to do this, I highly recommend it. I went with "Bird's Underwater", who runs a professional, respectful operation. Here are a few of my images from a morning with the Manatees. Click on the images for more details.
Enjoy!
Great Photos Steve! I really like #1.
Mike
Steve
I've always had good experiences with Birds and have always heard good things about them. How was the over all visibility? I'm planing on another trip up there either this weekend or next, I'm just waiting on my domeport to come back from service.
Mark
The vis was quite good, but I suspect that the vis at Three Sisters Spring is always good.... early in the morning. As soon as you get a few careless people in the spring, then it rapidly drops. Yet another reason to go with Birds is that they go early and beat most others out there.
Here are a few more for your perusal. I have somewhat mixed feelings about the second to last one. The water was getting pretty stirred up so I tried to make lemonade out of lemons by capturing the sun rays, which I got alright, but I am not happy with the particulates in the foreground. What do you think?
I like the "four armed" shot with the surface reflection.
