Manatee!

 
 
 
 
This was the highlight of Saturday morning's dive. I knew that Manatees frequent the Blue Hole, but in a year of swimming out there, I seem to always miss them. Saturday, we had just crossed into the hole, and I was swimming off to go inspect a pretty aenemonae, when Steve grabbed my ankle and gave me a good shake, telling me to look below me. This little girl was swimming out of one of the tunnels about 30 feet below me. What a treat! She let us swim with her for a little while, but since we didn't have scuba tanks, our time underwater with her was pretty limited, as we had to keep clawing to the surface for air. Apparently, some of them out here are happy to let you scratch their noses, and will roll over on their backs for a good tummy rub. Do I need to tell you how long it took us to get our dive gear set up the next day? :-) You can see that she's had a pretty unfortunate run-in with some discarded fishing line - it's wrapped around her tail and her fins, to the point of cutting into flesh. It's really sad to see how badly someone's carelessness can affect the critters who live here. On the way back, we told some of our diver friends that she was out in the hole and they went out that night to try and find her and cut some of it off, but she had taken off to another location. Steve and I went back out Sunday morning with tanks and knives, but she didn't make another appearance for us.

Incidentally, I found this one Wikipedia: The name manatí comes from the Taíno, a pre-Columbian people of the Caribbean, meaning "breast"

I'm thinking those are some SERIOUS gazongas.

All of the underwater critters decidedly lead to one happy girl - especially with a beautiful smelling plummeria in her hair! That's got to be one of the best smells on earth... yum.