Thalassophobia and Manatees
Thalassophobia: a fear of the sea. Manatees: gray sea cows.
Hi! I’m Sasha and I’ve traveled full-time in an RV since 2018. I write stories that will take you 3 minutes (or less!) to read, and they can be delivered straight to your inbox every Monday.
Check out my post on how water is different depending on which part of the country you’re in here or read a very sad tale of a trash panda.
Thalassophobia and Manatees
In 2012, in the middle of an ocean with two people I had met less than an hour earlier, I had a panic attack while learning to scuba dive. I remembered a key takeaway from my morning session: Do not put your mask on your forehead. It signals you’re not thinking clearly because you can lose your mask. I put my mask on my forehead. The boat was called back and I sat on it for 2 hours, getting crispy and dehydrated in the sun.
To this day, it’s one of the things I’m most humiliated about.
But what was worse is that my love for swimming turned into absolute and total fear of bodies of water. Gripping fear that crawls like little creatures up your throat.
Cue 2019: My travel partner, Jeremiah, has different bucket list items than I have. One of them that was a “must” for him was swimming with manatees: the creatures that seem like they’ve just woken up from a nap while donning their most oversized gray sweatsuits.
Now, this may come as a surprise, but these short-armed sea cows live underwater. That’s not where I thrive.
We talked about it. Would he be willing to do it without me? No.
Alrighty then. On an April morning, I suckered myself into a wet suit, and we headed out to the spring-fed river in Florida. Within moments of boarding our boat, our captain was pointing to a lump that had submerged. It was go time.
Our guide reminded us when we jumped in that the water would be incredibly cold as our wet suits adjusted. She was right. I was immediately aware that the feeling of not being able to catch my breath in cold water feels a lot like a panic attack.
We floated towards a large sea cow, aptly nicknamed for their mostly docile temperament. She raised her body to grab a lipful of fresh air before hunkering back into the river. Jeremiah reached out, and we held hands, watching the huge blob of grayness float and eat.
And with that, I was fine. Each time we’d dip in, I’d plop right into the water, aware that I could always pop back on to that boat, but more eager to take advantage of a bucket list item.
Nearly two hours later, a baby manatee - still hundreds of pounds in weight - shoved his face up to my snorkel-covered one. The signal that I could touch him with one hand. I put my fingers out in front of me, laughing through my snorkel, and pet him as I would my dog. Slowly, he drifted down and munched on some algae-like river grass as we floated near him. His big lips grabbed the yellow-tinged water grass. Not everything is silenced below water: the manatees chomping on their grasses was a constant shuffling heartbeat.
I equate swimming with manatees to the utter joy I had while walking through Kartchner Caverns outside of Tucson, Arizona, something that was on my bucket list. Claustrophobia isn’t something I deal with. Different phobias for different folks.
I’m still afraid of bodies of water, but sometimes, you just have to take a dip with some big gray sea cows.
Thanks for traveling with me,
Sasha
More down the rabbit hole:
November is Manatee Awareness Month. The threatened species can swim about 15 miles an hour if put in danger, but they are slow to react to oncoming water traffic and are often killed by oblivious boaters. Approximately 25% of manatees that die each year are due to collisions with watercraft.
On a lighter note, the closest relative to the manatee is the elephant, and they also have toenails.