We took a fantastic boat trip today, up into the mangrove lagoons at the north end of Chetumal Bay. We were supposedly looking for manatees but really we were just exploring, looking at birds, enjoying the sun and the water and oh yea, looking for manatees. It's a manatee reserve up there, Mimi and I decided that if we found some in the wild we wouldn't ever have to go to Florida. Unfortunately, the only one we saw had been abandoned as a baby, raised by humans and was in a pen out in the water to get him adjusted to life on his own. It didn't count so we still may have to go to Florida one of these days.

Here's a shot from the water of our parking place at Yax Ha outside of Chetumal, a spectacular location.

We went through a maze of waterways, it would be really easy to get lost but our boatman obviously knew the area really well.

We ended up having lunch at a small town way back in, it doesn't even appear on our maps but there is a road in and a place to camp. We're thinking it would be a great place to spend a week or so one of these trips.

Our table under the trees, we had brought some food, bought some beer from them and a really good shrimp ceviche.




After that, we went by an observation tower in the manatee sanctuary, apparently the manatees are mostly here in May and June. The view from the top was great, the water is so clear that looking down at Colleen swimming it is like she is on top of the water.




We found Daniel, the baby manatee, in his pen out in open water. I kind of felt sorry for him all alone out there. He came right over to the net and kind of pawed at it like a dog would.




We stopped at an island in the bay, it is a long island but has a narrow spot in the middle where it is only about 15' across, very Robinson Crusoe.


A perfect day!