For those of you who follow my blog, you already know that I spend a significant amount of my time exploring the Caribbean waters that surround Saint Croix. After a week off island I was absolutely dying to get back in so I woke up early, packed all my snorkel gear in the Jeep and headed out West. It was a little breezy so there was a mild chop to the water but the visibility was still decent and the sun was shining.
I spent an hour exploring under the pier, taking photos of all the small reef fish and I was lucky enough to stumble upon a sea turtle that was social enough to let me swim with him a ways.
By this time I was getting a little tired and figured I had had enough of the water for the day. As I was heading back, I decided to change from my normal course and went swimming out into a large area of just sandy bottom towards some sunken pipes I know of. After a week of not swimming I thought it would be good exercise to cruse out there and back... It was here in the middle of the sandy expanse I ran into one of the rarest things you could ever stumble upon in the Caribbean, a Manatee, the skinniest manatee I have ever seen at that.
He was taking his time and I was able to get quite a few wonderful photos. As it moved along it had three remoras hitching a ride on him, cleaning as they went. This Manatee but actually using his fins to push himself along the sand as he went, coming from Florida I have seen many manatees in my life but none of them looked quite like this one. This ones snout was a little longer and as a said before it was the skinniest Manatee I have ever seen in my life.
After awhile, the manatee had clearly had enough of me following him around so he started cruising faster to get away from me and I let him. It wasn't until I got out of the water and told a couple people who were getting into the water what I saw that I realized how significant that encounter was. I then called a friend who has been on island most of his life, he called the National Wildlife Association and they had a team of divers in the water within an hour. Unfortunately they have been unable to locate this poor creature and we are all concerned for its survival.
Manatees for generations now have been absent from the Caribbean islands. There are a few found in Puerto Rico, around the southern and eastern end of the island and around nearby Vieques Island. Except for a very rare sighting, the only findings of Manatees in the Virgin Islands are of their fossils here in Saint Croix.
I have talked to as many people as I can about what I saw and there are people who have been living here for 30+ years who have never seen a Manatee and don't even know anyone else who has seen a Manatee. Which now just leaves me wondering where it came from and exactly what type of Manatee it was. Some people seem to think its a West Indian Manatee, others an Antilles Manatee... Below are photos of this mysterious creature. If you are anyone you know have any insights or information you can give us about this animal please comment below.
