The first time I see a manatee, I’m in Siesta Key, my family’s go-to vacation spot, because my grandparents

own this little hole-in-the-wall condo that barely fits two people, never mind four, which means we can stay for free. I’m maybe eight, maybe ten, and I haven’t quite reached that teenage angst phrase where I started hating the beach yet. My sister and I spend more time in the pool than the ocean, much to my parents’ dismay, and I stay in the sun long enough that I get so dehydrated my face hurts.

We’re not in the pool now, though, but on a medium two-story boat cruising gently through the Gulf of

Mexico. It’s some sort of ocean tour, meant to teach you about dolphins and starfish and the works. “Like whale-watching, but without the whales,” my mom says.

“So just watching,” my dad says, then laughs when she gives him a look.

“Like how stars are just starfish without the fish,” my sister adds. Then she and my dad start listing similar

examples. Lions are sea lions without the sea; wolves are werewolves without the were. My mom’s look turns even more unimpressed.

When we set sail, my mom takes my sister to look over the railing, and my dad sits with me at a table. I pull

out a book—Diary of a Wimpy Kid—and stare blankly at the pages. The wind gently brushes my hair off my shoulders, providing just a bit of comfort from the sweltering Florida heat. It’s mid-morning, so we’ve got a few hours until it gets unbearable. The waves from the water lick against the boat, and all I want to do is jump into the water. It’s cotton candy blue and I can see right down to the bottom. The smell of salt is strong enough that I ask my dad to get me a bottle of water.

As he walks away, I listen to the announcer’s voice. He goes on about the Gulf, and the animals living in it, and

what food we absolutely need to try. In the middle of the tour, after about an hour, he says, “Folks, we got something special for you today. There’s been a bunch of manatee sightings in this area lately, and we think we’re gonna get to see one ourselves.”

This catches my attention. “Manatees usually come up for air every three to five minutes,” the announcer

continues, “but can hold their breath for up to twenty. When they do breathe, they replace ninety percent of the air in their lungs. When we breathe, we only replace ten! Keep an eye out for one of these creatures. They look like potatoes.”

Sure enough, a few minutes later, my sister starts wildly gesturing me over, yelling, “Hannah! There’s a

manatee!” I scramble out of my seat, throwing myself against the railing to get a glimpse of what I’m imagining is a majestic creature.

For a second, nothing happens. Then, a giant brown potato floats to the top of the water. It’s just the

manatee’s back; its face never surfaces.

When it sinks under again, I start to giggle. “It’s a sea potato,” I say.

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Manatees will always remind me of Florida, of saltiness and white heat and white sand, and my parents

buying us colorful souvenirs. Of walking down the beach at night into town and getting dinner at a restaurant with an equally colorful interior. I think it serves Mexican food. Of going to Big O’s and biting the bottom of my cone too soon, my dad trying to control the black raspberry chocolate chip dripping down my arm while sitting on the store’s front steps.

Our cozy little condo with the yellow walls and tiny kitchen. Watching the dolphins at the aquarium. Hiding

from the sun and collecting shells upon shells upon shells. When I find myself missing home, I’ll grab one of my many tie-dye Siesta Key shirts.

There’s a sort of innocence that’s unique to manatees. They have no natural predators and only move about

three to five miles per hour. They like to swim in water that’s been made warm by power plants. If there’s an alligator in their way, all they have to do is gently nudge it, and it moves aside. Maybe it’s their appearance—they look like something you’d grab onto and squish. Their faces make them look like they’ve got nothing going on inside those heads of theirs.

 

Humans are the biggest threat to manatees. Each year, hundreds of manatees die in boat accidents.

This fact was always in the back of my mind when I’d sail down the Connecticut River with Becca, my best

friend. My hometown, Portland, is located in a slight bend in the river, so boating and fishing and swimming were common occurrences.

Becca’s dad drives tugboats for a living, and he owned a little two-story boat called the Barnacle Balls. It was

red and white, with a bathroom and kitchen about as big as the ones in our Siesta Key condo, and had a booth that we’d sit in when it was raining. Sometimes, he’d let Becca and I clamber up top and steer.

During one of these times, I poke him in the shoulder and say, “Slow down. You gotta watch out for

manatees.” My tone is light; I know there are no manatees in Connecticut.

He laughs and slows down just a bit. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I’ve done this plenty of times. The manatees are

safe.” His tone is just as light.

When we get to a deep part of the river, he throws the anchor down. Becca and I link arms and jump off the

boat. I ask Becca to play manatees. “We just float around like giant potatoes.”

She wrinkles her nose. “That sounds boring. Let’s be mermaids instead.”

“Okay,” I say, because mermaids are a lot more fun anyway. Later, I’d learn that mermaid legends were

actually inspired by manatees. How such a rotund creature inspired such legends will never be clear to me.

But for now, we splash around in the river, moving much faster than manatees, and arguing over who gets the

pink tail and who gets the purple tail. When we climb back on the boat, I start to say something to Becca’s dad, but he beats me to it: “I’ll make sure to watch out for the manatees on my way back.”

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In some ways, the manatee will always represent my carefree days on the beach, the childlike wonder I had for

this creature. How I longed to be able to glide through water, thinking about nothing but where my next meal will come from. Manatees have smooth brains and the lowest brain-mass-to-body-mass ratio; how I’d love to be able to tune out all the fears that came with growing up. Of course, you can only do this for so long before something happens—you get hit by a boat, or the cold water kills you, or something succeeds at hunting you.

In other ways, the manatee is a reminder of what could have been. If I had a stronger science background, if I

decided that English wasn’t the field for me, I would have studied marine biology. I would have opted to stay in New England rather than run off to southwestern Ohio. Maybe I would have gotten a doctorate, done some research. I would have focused on manatees, that I know, and probably ended up working in conservation.

There’s probably a way for me to have both—to hold onto this nostalgic fascination and to know that

manatees aren’t entirely out of my reach. I guess, in a way, the manatee is a reminder of that too.