I’ve come to Crystal River hoping for just such an encounter with these gentle giants of the sea, whose closest relatives are not seals or dolphins as one might expect, but elephants.
From mid-November to late March, manatees come in from the Gulf of Mexico’s cooler waters to King’s Bay, headwater of the Crystal River, making this the largest manatee wintering aggregation in the United States. Shallow springs here ensure the water remains at 22 Celsius all year round, the temperature crucial to manatees’ survival.
Many manatees have propeller scars from unfortunate collisions with boats in the Gulf, says Maddie Singer, our guide with Explorida Manatee Swim Tours.
However, here in the bay, boats can only idle, and the manatees, though functionally blind by human standards, can sense our presence in the water, and, apparently, hear our heartbeats from some distance away.