Oct 2006

First on the program was of course the obligatory look-around-the city and see all the tourist attractions. Not bad at all, San Francisco is much like Cape Town.

But after a few hours, I could not resist myself. Even on my first day I had to find some animals. And wow, I did. Sea lions frolicked in the harbor.

And the next days proved to be even better; Great landscape around SF! Look at these elks!

And more sea lions and even elephant sea lions (huge creatures)! I could not resist the temptation and jumped into the ice cold water and snorkeled with the sea lions. So after one day I can already reveal the mission statement of my trip: "Jump into the water with as many as creatures possible" with the ultimate goal "Be the new Steve Irwin".
And it became even better with Risso´s dolphins (2nd largest dolphins) and two humpback whales on a boat trip (no snorkeling unfortunately).

So, then off to Tallahassee to meet a friend. And again I was very lucky. We rented kayaks to paddle down the Wakulla river and bumped into a herd of see cows (manatees).

So I jumped in and could count "in the water with creature number two". This was one of the most amazing experiences ever. The adults were indifferent to my presence. But two very cute (some people say ugly, but they did not see their smile) small babies (only 1.5 meter) came to me to play. They enjoyed being rubbed on their bellies and to be rolled over.

Out of fashion: Swimming with dolphins, in: swimming with manatees. And if it wasn´t enough, the next day we saw alligators from a boat.
One was like 100 meters away from the spring beach were we swam. But unfortunately I could not add amazing creature number three to my "swimming with creatures" list and may be better so. ... Oh in between in Ginnie springs I snorkeled a river and saw strange long fish (alligator rods) and turtles. But more interesting, the alligator story continued in a little bit more dramatic way. On my way from Tallahassee to Miami (for flight to Cancun to meet Rob) by rental car I took another small kayak trip. I ended up being lost with as great feature a lot of alligators in dead end rivers too close to my boat (one actually hit my boat). That was not so funny anymore: completely alone, complete lost and completely surrounded by sometimes ten 3 meter allogators. I ended up parking my kayak on a small beach, hiking through a small swamp (also not so funny)and walking on the road back to the kayak rental people. So fooks, I think that is enough for the first two weeks. If my trip continues like this...