Out To Find a Manatee

So about a half an hour after I arrive to base the very first day, my nose begins to bleed. Mind you, I've known everyone for a maximum of an hour by now and here I am looking like a T-Rex ate my nose. It was a bloody affair and half the people weren't even at camp yet. Because our group was too large, David, one of the staff, had to make two trips to bring everyone down, so when the second group arrived I was the first sight they were greeted with as they stepped off the boat. Me, squatting in the sand trying to keep the puppy away from eating used tissues, while the sand-flies and mosquitoes had a field day. Not the first impression I wanted to make.

It was a bad nose bleed. The worst I have maybe ever had, and I was supposed to begin my advanced diving course the next day, but there was no way my nose was going to be okay with that. So instead, Dagny let me join the manatee group for the first day so that I could participate in something, at least.

As it would turn out, I ended up with a bloody nose for 5 out of the 7 days of my first week. Which meant diving was postponed until I could keep my nose under control. But on a more fortunate note, it also meant I got to join the manatee group every day for the first week, which was cool because I was able to see a different side of the project and still contribute.

We didn't get a good look at a manatee until our second outing, where we found two manatees together, one of them was a manatee that Dagny hadn't surveyed before. Which meant that when our group added her to the database, we also got to pick out a name for her.

We named her Mango :)

Look! Look! Look!

Spotting a manatee for the first time feels very accomplished, never mind that there were twenty other people pointing it out, so you couldn't miss them, but still, seeing my first (and second) manatee was quite cool.

The project involved studying manatees and their behavior, so in addition to taking photos, we also needed to watch what they were doing and how they reacted to people/tourists etc. 

These two appeared to have just woken up from a nap, and although not afraid of tourists, they swam after a few minutes, probably trying to find some privacy.

It did get quite crowded for a bit as everyone scrambled to get their photos

Having enough of the paparazzi, the pair of manatees say goodbye

This was the only manatee search I joined that actually found manatees. All my encounters later on were spontaneous, usually driving back from a dive site, or from replacing buoys out on the reef, but they were always stumbled upon (figuratively speaking), rather than sought out. 

But that meant they were always a fun surprise, so here are the manatees I met throughout my time in Belize.

 Yeah ok, so they look like large rocks underwater, they're manatees I swear!

 Saying hello

Finding a manatee is one thing, getting a good picture of it is another, but in my six weeks on the project I was able to see a manatee about half a dozen times. They were very fun to watch and observe, and always the highlight of anyone's day.