re: The manatees in Three Sisters Springs, FL are packed in like sardines

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can eat 100 heads a day

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knew a chick like that once

My family spent the week of Christmas in Crystal river. We did two seperate excursions to swim with the manatee's. 1 in CR the other just south in Homasassa. If you have never done it I would highly recommend. The experience was far better than I would have imagined.

ETA: I enjoyed the fish watching bas much as the manatee's. Snook, mangroves, sheepshead by the hundreds and mullet that looked to weigh 8 lbs

3rd from right in pink, could get it

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ETA: I enjoyed the fish watching bas much as the manatee's. Snook, mangroves, sheepshead by the hundreds and mullet that looked to weigh 8 lbs

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you beat me to it

but yeah wasn't that badass? Several of the snook we saw were absolute hogs too.

My first thought as well. Lol

perfect time to end them all, manatees are the fricking worst

If you look real hard, you'll see one of the Krassenstein brothers in there. I heard he was molested by a manatee.

Whatever you do in life never mention how tasty a manatee would be slow roasted in hearing distance of about 99.9% of the people who will be present when there is a manatee to be seen. I have done it twice, both times you would have though I had slapped those folk's mama in the forehead with my pecker the way they reacted.

The first time was at Manatee Springs. My wife and I were at the swimming area and there were several manatees present and about 65,000 people oohing and aaaahing over them. I asked my wife "reckon what size fly rod you'd need to turn one of them things". 64,998 people turned on me as if I had set the flags on fire down at the National Cemetery on Veterans Day. After about half of them chastised me for such an offense, I, being a smart arse if nothing else, mentioned how good one of them would taste slow cooked with some vinegar based BBQ sauce and Cole slaw. We had to leave. I ain't sure we had to but my wife suggested it'd be best and I usually defer to her judgement in those situations, which, uncannily, I find myself in more often than decorum would dictate.

The second time was at GTMO when a mama manatee had pushed her baby up on the bank at the marina because there was obviously something wrong with the baby. Nature doing what nature does. A co-worker and I found this pair and called the environmental SME to let him know about it. Before he could get there about 300 people, mostly women, had gotten wind of what was going and showed up and you ain't never heard the wailing and gnashing of teeth like that bunch got up to. When the mama got the baby high enough out of the water she would start to swim away and about half of those idiots would drag that baby back in the water...the thing was obviously not going to make it, at best an unattractive species, one that is so ugly theyre cute, but this one didn't look right and could not move or stay upright on its own...when they would drag it to deep water it'd sink slowly out of sight and the mama would come back and push it out of the water...about 7 times before the MPs put a stop to it. While this was happening, my co-worker, a retired marine drill instructor from Oxford Alabama, so not what one would call someone with social graces, mentioned how tender that baby would be cooked in the ground with banana leaves and an apple in its mouth. God almighty it was good thing the MPs showed up or those morons would have drug us to deeper water and held us down until the bubbles stopped. Having had a prior experience with almost exactly the same thing my only offense this time was obviously being friends with this old boy and laughing at his joke. I am not sure the crowd wasn't more pissed at me than him for my enabling him. The environmental SME finally told these folks what was painfully obvious, there was something wrong with the baby and the mama was merely abandoning it as nature will do in such situations. They really started in with the cries of anguish at this....and then the base vet arrived. Army vet. Very nice young lady but not accustomed to dealing with irrational crowds. She immediately offered to put the thing down. Good godalmighty you'd have thought she meant the crowd, not the damaged baby manatee. Trying to make amends for suggesting doing the humane thing she mentioned a manatee hospital on the north shore of Jamaica....about 100 miles south of GTMO. These morons wanted to call a medivac helicopter from Miami and have that poor critter hauled off to Jamaica! They were deadly serious.....to the point that the vet contacted the hospital and was told it would cost about $100k to fly to GTMO, pick the thing up and fly it back to Jamaica and treat whatever might be ailing it with almost no chance of success. They didn't care....fully expected the US Navy to cough up the cash. The Navy, being the Navy, and not seeing how spending that sort of money could benefit a Navy officer or contractor, of course declined. When the base commander got involved and told that crowd that they were welcome to take up a collection and he would seed it with $500 those morons realized they'd need to cough up about $300 each and suddenly remembered they had business elsewhere. That crowd of people were still pissed off about that damage baby manatee 2 + years later when I left GTMO. Some of them never spoke to any of those of us there who weren't apoplectic that the navy wouldn't spend $100K to save a manatee that was nearly dead when we first discovered it. To this day I ain't sure that old boy from Oxford Alabama was joking about slow roasting that thing.....

Wall of Text crits you for over 9000!

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and why is that, m'edge lord??

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I lived in South Florida for 10 years. Every river they frequent becomes a miserable no wake zone because they are so stupid. frick manatees