Adventure Travel with Mike Engiles - Crystal River Watersports in Florida - Adventure Travel Podcast - Big World Made Small

Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_02 (01:05):
Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of
the Big World Made Small podcastfor the Adventure Traveler.
So happy to have each and everyone of you back today, and super
excited to have our guest today.
We've got Mike Angles.
Mike is the executive manager,slash owner, slash man of many
hats at Crystal River WaterSports.
Mike, welcome to the show.
Happy to have you here.

(01:26):
Yeah, thank you, Jason.

SPEAKER_00 (01:27):
I'm glad to be here.

SPEAKER_02 (01:28):
It should be fun.
It's going to be a lot of fun.
And right before I hit therecord button, we were
discussing kind of, you know,titles and all this stuff, and
you kind of indicate there's afew things going on.
One is the owner, executivemanager.
I know uh in in business,sometimes owners do a lot of
different things.
So is there anything else wewould need to add to that title?

SPEAKER_00 (01:47):
What I have on Facebook is I'm the chief
wetsuit washer.
So does that count?

SPEAKER_02 (01:53):
See, I know I knew that about you.
Yeah, yeah, very cool.
And you mentioned wetsuit, wekind of already mentioned water
sports, so people are probablymaking the connections if they
just clicked into this and anddidn't read the bio or the notes
yet.
Obviously, you're working withwater and wetsuits.
So before we go into your storyto figure out how you got from

(02:13):
where you were to washingwetsuits, let's give our
listeners kind of an idea whatis Crystal River Water Sports.
What do you guys do there?

SPEAKER_00 (02:21):
So primarily we're a manatee swim tour company.
So we like to give people theexperience of swimming with
manatees in their naturalenvironment.
They're not captive animals.
Um, and we try to do it in themost ecologically or sustainable
way possible.

SPEAKER_02 (02:37):
All right.
So wow, you've practiced that.
That's really good.
Yeah, well, you've been doing ita while.
You've had some time.
Couple days.
A couple days, I get that.
And you know, here's the thing,Mike, people are listening to
this from around the world.
If you've been around Florida,you automatically kind of know
what a manatee is.
You have an idea of what we'retalking about.

(02:58):
There may be some other peoplethat are listening to this, like
what the heck?
Manatee swim tour, swim withmanatees.
So I don't know how we're gonnado this on a podcast, but help
help those listeners that haveno idea what a manatee is,
because I suspect there'ssomeone out there that doesn't,
um, or maybe a few people.
What how do you describe what amanatee is when you don't have
the ability to show them apicture?

SPEAKER_00 (03:19):
Well, it depends on if they're about to swim with
them.
If they're about to swim, ifthey're about to swim, we'll say
they're a 1,500 pound butterfly.
Okay.
They're about the most gentlecreature you could find,
however, they are large.
So an adult manatee is 10 to 12feet long and 1200, 1500 pounds,

(03:41):
but we have some overachieversthat are actually closer to
2,500 pounds in the area.
So their cousins, the Dugongs.
I was on a trip recently with uhfolks from Australia, so uh he
was yanking my chain, asking mewhy I had a platypus on my
shirt, and then he's like, No, Iknow it's a dugong.
It's like, no, it's not Dugongeither, but it it's a manatee.

(04:02):
So it's actually the West Indianmanatee, and we have the largest
population of them on the westcoast of Florida, so we'll have
in this area about 11, 1200 inthe winter on a cold day.
So they come into the springs inthe winter to get away from the
cold waters of the Gulf.

SPEAKER_02 (04:20):
Okay, very cool.
So manatee and dugong areclosely related.
Yes.
Is there a significantdifference between the two?
Like somebody that knows adugong, what would be the
difference between a dugong anda manatee without going into
genetics and uh chromosomes andall that stuff?

SPEAKER_00 (04:37):
The whole biology, the most obvious feature is the
tail.
A dugong has a tail like adolphin, so it's kind of split,
where a manatee has a paddletail.
Okay, so that that's the mostobvious uh difference.
If you look at the facial, it'sa little different because
manatees eat at the bottom, sotheir face looks down, dugongs

(04:58):
kind of look forward, but from adistance you're gonna notice the
difference in the tail.

SPEAKER_02 (05:03):
Okay.
So I've heard of obviouslymanatee.
I've seen manatee.
I've seen I don't, I'm not, Iprobably haven't seen a dugong.
Is are is there another closelyrelated species that someone
might connect with?
I know I've also heard like themcalled sea cows.
Are there other a few other turterms that people might be like,
oh yeah, I know what he'stalking about?

SPEAKER_00 (05:23):
Yeah, well, I mean, if you go back to Christopher
Columbus, you know, when hefirst saw them in the Caribbean,
he uh he called them, he said uhmermaids were not nearly as
attractive as uh legend had madethem out to be.
And that's actually in one ofhis logs uh from our 18 or 1492,
no, 1496 maybe, somewhere inthere.

(05:43):
But anyway, yeah, it's actuallyin his log that menatees were
not as pretty as Legend made it.
No, they're their own order,Serenia, which sirens, aren't
you, mermaid, you know, ties allyou know, ties back together.
There really isn't anything tooterribly close.
Their closest relative isactually an elephant.

(06:03):
So there are a lot of biologicalfeatures where they're similar,
including their memory and theway they teach young where food
and water sources are and thingslike that.
So there's a lot there'scertainly a lot of biological as
well as uh ecological orenvironmental similarities.

SPEAKER_02 (06:21):
Okay, very cool.
I love the story of the siren,and I suspect it's come up in
conversations.
You mentioned sirenia.
Is that how you say the class?
Is it the class name?
Yes, sirenia.
And I kind of thought it was astory that everybody knew about
mermaids and sirens and and allthis, but then I I had a
conversation with someonerecently and they had no idea

(06:42):
what I was talking about.
So is there any any mythologicalstories or anything like that
about mermaids and sirens andall that stuff, just because you
mentioned the word siren?
I know it's not a manatee story,maybe, but go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 (06:54):
Yeah, no, not directly, or certainly not in
this area.
I mean, uh although one of theother things we do is we do
mermaid lessons as well.
Yeah, I saw that on yourwebsite.
I wasn't gonna bring that up,but yeah.
It's pretty cool.
So uh WikiWatchy, which is justsouth of where we are in
Florida, has had a live mermaidshow since the 1940s.

(07:16):
So they've got an underwaterviewing area and they've had a
live show going on there forwhat 80 couple years now.
Uh-huh.
So yeah, having said that, weneeded a guinea pig for a
mermaid course, so I put a tailon and I got certified as a
mermaid.
So uh I I I actually I probablyhave a card here somewhere
saying I'm certified.

SPEAKER_02 (07:37):
So so, Mike, you just reinforced Columbus's
theory or what what he saidabout mermaids are not quite as
attractive as we all thought.

SPEAKER_00 (07:45):
Yeah, yeah, no doubt, right?
I mean you're a good-lookingguy, but Well I don't know.
I usually say I've got a I'vegot a face for radio, not for
podcasts.

SPEAKER_02 (07:54):
Cool.
So I'd heard the kind of thisthe myth or the story was the
mermaid was this mythicalcreature.
You take a bunch of men and youput them on a ship and sail them
across the Atlantic.
They tend to start fantasizingand thinking about maybe what
men do when they're away fromtheir girlfriends or their their
families or whatever for awhile, and they kind of get a

(08:14):
little bit, you know,fantastical or whatever.
And then there was this storythat the mermaids would, I
guess, sit on the rocks and dothe sir the siren call.
They would sing and it woulddraw this shipful of, I'm just
gonna say horny guys, towardsthe sound of these beautiful
sounding women, and then they'dcrash on the rocks.
And I don't know what themermaids did with them.
Do you know the rest of thestory?

SPEAKER_00 (08:36):
No, I don't.
And you you're you're testing myuh academic background.
I think it may have been theOdyssey.

SPEAKER_02 (08:44):
Yeah, yeah, maybe.
I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 (08:45):
I don't know where it's Homer's Odyssey versus the
Iliad.
It's somewhere back, you know,ancient Greek area, era.
Or as one of my guides so gentlyputs it, you know, if they
mistook if they mistakenmanatees for mermaids, how long
were they away from home or howmuch or how much rum of they had

(09:05):
to drink?
Yeah, so you know, either oneare you know fairly plausible
explanations.

SPEAKER_02 (09:10):
Well, they say if you can't love the if you can't
be with the one you love, lovethe one you're with.
So maybe it's like when you'rein when you're in Florida a long
ways from home, maybe thosemanatees look pretty cute.

SPEAKER_00 (09:20):
Now they're and the and there are there's dugongs
over in the you know on Red Sea,and there's a Well I didn't know
that.
Yeah, there's a a species ofmanatees in the Amazon, and
there's some on the east coastof Africa as well.
So there are some differentspecies of manatees around in
different locations, but they'rethey're very disjoint
populations.

(09:41):
Okay, very cool.

SPEAKER_02 (09:42):
So let's one thing you mentioned is when I asked
you to describe it, you saidthey're a fifteen hundred pound
butterfly.
I think something like that iswhat kind of what you said.
But I also heard you say thatwhen people are getting ready to
swim with them.
And I'm envisioning that goes onto say yes, they're calm,
they're they're they're nice,they're sweet, or whatever, that

(10:04):
maybe a butterfly would be.
But the fact that you mentionedthey're 1,500 pounds, I sense
there's a little bit to I guesswhat I'm trying to ask is is
this part of a safety briefing?
Is this like, yeah, they're sthey're nice, but you don't want
to get between them and a boatdock or something like that?
Or so tell us like what arepeople what's what are the
dangers of swimming withmanatees?
I guess is what I'm asking.

SPEAKER_00 (10:25):
Yeah, there's really not any danger with swimming
with the manatees.
It's just people areapprehensive.
We get folks from all over theworld, some of them have never
really been in open waterbefore.
At a level I'm not sure, somehave been in water deeper than
their bathtub.
And they're they're gonna jumpoff a boat to swim with a a
large animal.
So, you know, people think 1500pounds, how big is that?

(10:49):
Well, it's about the size of aClydesdale.
Okay, so so for you know,Americans or you know, folks
that you know know Budweisercommercials, you know,
Clydesdales are a pretty bighorse.
So, no, they're they're gentle,they do surprise you, they can
be stealthy in the water.
So if the water isn't uh superclear, sometimes they'll come

(11:09):
right up to you and you turnyour head and there's a manatee
right here, and we hear allkinds of expletives shouted
through snorkels uh at thatpoint in time because it's it'll
scare the snot out of you if youknow all of a sudden you're in
the water and there's somethingthat big next to you.
Oh yeah, it's eye-opening.

SPEAKER_02 (11:29):
Well, because a lot of in my experience, I I
actually managed a scuba divingand fly fishing lodge off the
coast of Belize and we hadmanatees around the atoll.
And it was but but moreimportantly, where I'm going
with this is we also took a lotof people snorkeling for the
first time.
And if you've never put yourface in the water with a mask
and a snorkel, it already Ithink your body naturally has a

(11:51):
kind of a anxious reaction tothat.
A lot of people, the first timethey do it, they're already
their adrenaline, theirtestosterone, or they're just
their hormones are just kind ofgoing already.
So yeah, so I can imagine ifyou're like, I'm just trying to
breathe here, I'm just trying torelax enough to breathe.
And then I look over to my leftand a fifth uh, you know, a
Clydesdale is swimming around inthe water with me.

(12:12):
Yeah, I get that.

unknown (12:13):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (12:13):
Well, a a lot of it's just apprehension, right?
People, you know, people hearwhatever horror stories, you
know, depending on the week.
So they're like, are theregators?
And the answer in Florida isokay, I guess.
If it's wet, there's gators.
Or uh and if you want to be moreprecise, if you taste it and
there's salt, there's no gators,but there's sharks.

(12:35):
So depending on the people andhow much of a uh of smart alec
mood I'm in, you know, it'slike, are there gators?
No, you don't have to worryabout them, the sharks ate them.
Hold it.
There's sharks, there's sharks,no, no issues.
No, the manatees ate the sharks.
And and and then it starts toclick, hold it, manatees are

(12:57):
herbivores.

SPEAKER_02 (12:59):
Well, you probably have to tell people that.
A lot of people might not knowthat initially, yeah.
So but and I I think there is atleast one species of shark
that'll go into freshwater.
I I don't know if it was thebull shark or something.
They like had swim up the upsome of the rivers, and you
know, so so do you see bullsharks sometimes even in the
springs where it is freshwater?

SPEAKER_00 (13:20):
Seldom in the springs.

SPEAKER_02 (13:21):
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (13:22):
In the winter, near one of the springs, it's
actually a bit of a bull sharknursery.
So we'll get juveniles there inthe winter.
There were some doctoralstudents from University of
Florida actually doing a studyon.
And every so often the guidesand our little network will
share pictures of a bull sharkcruising through the spring
while they're on a tour, but wetend not to put that on our

(13:45):
social media much.
So am I gonna am I gonna are yougonna ask me to edit this out
later?
No, we're good.

SPEAKER_02 (13:52):
Hey, uh and you said it's a nursery, so we'll get
juveniles, but those juvenilesdidn't get there by themselves.
Somebody had to bring themthere.

SPEAKER_00 (13:59):
Yeah, in a sense, right?
Uh okay.
Well, I mean, it our area'stitle.
The manatees go out to the gulfin the summer.
So we get dolphins, we gettarpon, we get, you know, all
kinds of saltwater fish in.
So could other species swim in?
Yeah, but not frequently.
And chances are we're not on themenu for any of it, so it

(14:22):
doesn't matter.
I mean, I I I was diving lastweek on a trip and we saw six
different species of sharks on adive.
Yeah.
I mean, it you're in theirenvironment, don't do anything
stupid, but we're not on theirmenu.

SPEAKER_02 (14:37):
If you roll over on your side and flap start
flopping around like an injuredfish, maybe, but I don't know.
It's it's uh like you said,they're not cruising around
generally looking for forsnorkelers, but yeah, it's uh
No.
Yeah, okay.
I do remember I've I've been inthe water diving and snorkeling
with manatees and belize, butwhen you see them, they're

(15:00):
generally pretty far off.
It's a very remote area.
They're not hanging around in aparticular spot trying to stay
warm, where it sounds like withthe springs, you kind of they
just come in there and there'sthere's boats, there's people,
so they're just kind of maybecomfortable, I guess.
But where I'm going with this iswhen I have seen manatee in
Belize, if I'm out on a boat orsomething in shallow water, when

(15:25):
they become aware of us, theytake off at a surprisingly fast
rate.
So my experience of them is theyget spooked and boom, they're
gone pretty quick.
But it sounds like you you'resaying that the manatees in your
area are just pretty curious,and they'll just come up and
check people out, or or do theytake off really fast sometimes?

SPEAKER_00 (15:43):
Or Yes, all the above.
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (15:45):
Yeah, animals.
They do what they do, whateverthey want to do.

SPEAKER_00 (15:49):
They do what they do, they have the intelligence
of about a five-year-old, andthey have personalities.
So some are curious, especiallyjuveniles, and want to check you
out.
Some want absolutely nothing todo with people and just ignore
you and go about their day, andsome you it's you annoy them,
and you go to get in the waterand they swim away.

(16:11):
And we had one that would swimin a circle, flap its tail on
the bottom, and mud up the area,hoping to discourage people from
getting in.
And if you still got in, itwould swim 20 feet away and like
duck somewhere and wait till youleft, and then it would go right
back to whatever it wanted todo.
So so some react, and that'skind of the trick a little bit

(16:35):
in doing tours, is throughMarine Mammal Protection Act,
Endangered Species Act, youshouldn't alter their behavior
by any of your actions.
So if you're getting in an areaand the manatee swims away, you
don't want to chase it and causeit to go further away.
So, you know, that's kind of thegolden rule with anything wild

(16:55):
is let them do their thing andgive them their space.
And it certainly applies tomanatees as well.
But uh female cows, there aretimes, especially this time of
year, where the juvenile and thethe mother wants to take a nap,
and it will swim by with a ajuvenile, and the juvenile start
checking out the guest, and thefemale will swim 20, 30, 40 feet

(17:18):
away and drop down on the bottomand take a snooze, and they do
make a sound.
It's kind of a chirp, but it'snot a bird chirp, but you know,
it it's an audible sound betweenthe the cow and the calf, and
you'll see the calf's head popup, and like calf look around,
and then go back to whatever itwas doing.

SPEAKER_01 (17:40):
That's cool.

SPEAKER_00 (17:41):
And then you'll hear it again, and the calf will
react that it hurt it, butdoesn't do what the mother wants
it to do.
And then the third time thefemale will swim by and like
nudge the calf and off they'llswim.
So it's kind of like I'm gonnacount the three uh in the animal
world.

SPEAKER_02 (17:58):
Yeah, that's that's that's pretty cool.
You know, as you were talkingabout, I guess it was the uh the
rules and the regulations thatsay, you know, you shouldn't
disturb them.
And I'm sure your guides andyour team are very up on that.
I'm I'm not sure I want to askyou this, but I'm gonna ask you
about this a little bit becausebecause I've spent a lot of time
with with clients that, youknow, you've got the briefing,

(18:20):
okay, we're gonna go diving overthis reef and you know, don't be
touching things, don't bekicking your fins down into the
reef, and just and it's not thatpeople don't care what you tell
them, but there's a lot ofthings going on, they're
excited.
So I guess where I'm going withthis is what are the things that

(18:41):
you would love to convey toclients like right now when
they're you know they're gettingready, they're gonna go see you,
and they're calm, they're ableto absorb it.
Like, what are the things thatyou see people doing that you
really wish you could kind ofhelp them not do?
Like, because I I'm thinking ofthe the person that you say,
okay, we're gonna get in thewater slow and move slow, and

(19:02):
then they just do a you know, acannonball off the side of the
boat, and you're like, Oh mygosh.
So I know you've seen thisstuff, but I also recognize that
your guests and your clients arelistening to this.
So, so what's the best way wecan help them understand what
they should and should not do?

SPEAKER_00 (19:18):
One of the guides puts it, manatees are calm,
docile creatures, and they wantto be around other calm docile
creatures.
So if you get in and you knowyou're kind of you know, wheels
on fire, um, it's gonna spookmost of them and they're gonna
swim away.
And then we try to do it, youknow, in a controlled
environment.
We have people back down theladder to get in.

(19:40):
They're not sliding off thedeck, they're not jumping.
All the companies use when I gothere 12 years ago, all the
companies gave everybody fins.
Right now, we don't give anybodyfins.
Okay, tell me about that.
Well, most people they haven'tused them before, so they don't
know how to use them.
So they're gonna stir up thebottom, they're gonna kick each

(20:01):
other, they're gonna kickmanatees, and if they do, it
allows them to go faster thanyou might want them to anyway.
So it's really much more of afloat than it is a snorkel.
You know, we're not travelingfar for the most part.
So you know, cal calm is the wayto go.
Uh, you know, a dive master Ihad in the keys years ago, you

(20:24):
know, he used to say, you know,go fast, see a little, go slow,
see a lot.
And it's the same thing on anydive.
Um, you know, you're you're notgonna see the gobies and the
neuter bronchs, and you know,see that eel with just its nose
sticking out or something likethat if you're cruising along
the reef, you know, flutterkicking away.

(20:46):
Yeah, and it it's it's the samething with manatees.
If you're nice and calm, thenyou can start observing what
they look like and theirbehaviors, and you know, some of
them will walk on the bottomwith their flippers, you can
hear them chewing when they eat,you know, so you know you can
start paying attention and youknow, and actually learn from

(21:08):
them or you know, learn aboutthem and appreciate you know the
animals and how they existversus purely a photo op.
You know, if you want to justjump in for a photo op, and
obviously, you know, you getsome of that and we try to get
good pictures and stuff likethat, but you know, we've got to
put the manatees first.

SPEAKER_02 (21:29):
Right, because the manatees are the natural
environment and to someextension your continued
business successful, it'sdependent on you know protecting
the resource so that people cancontinue to come and enjoy it.
And if uh you know, and maybeyou've got a client that's like,
this is my you know, I live inNew York and I've got one day to

(21:50):
go swim with the manatees, and Idon't care if I scare them all,
I just want to get in the waterand take a picture.
That's that's tough.
And and I'm not knockinganybody, every everybody, we all
have different speeds of life.

SPEAKER_01 (22:00):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (22:01):
So we're not gonna we're not gonna I shouldn't have
even said New York.
That kind of in indicates thatmaybe I'm saying people in New
York have a quick speed of life.
But but I also remember when wewere diving in Belize and it was
just the you know, you tellpeople, you know, there's no
point in chasing, don't likedon't chase the turtle, it's not
gonna improve the experience.
But you know, I'm not gonna sayyou always have one in the

(22:24):
group, but you know, you havethis whole briefing about don't
chase, don't chase them, don'tchase them.
And then you get in the waterand you look over your shoulder.
There goes one of your clientsswimming off the edge of the
reef chasing the turtle, andyou're like, okay.

SPEAKER_00 (22:36):
Right.
Obviously, we've had that.
It's like, you know, we hit thewater and it's like, where did
they go?
I know I got in with six, and Ican only find five people.
Yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (22:45):
And then one of the other guests, well, I saw him uh
going around the corner chasingthat big, that big did they call
him bull manager?
It's because it's cows.
The females are cows.
I assume the males are bulls.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
That's that's pretty cool.
What it before we because we'regonna get into the story, we're
gonna figure out how you gotthere, but is there anything
else while we're on the subject?
Out of the manatees.
Is there anything else youreally think people need to

(23:06):
know?
Because I mean, honestly, mostof what I've heard of manatees
is about boat strikes.
And I don't know if that'srelevant to this conversation,
but I think it's a thing, so itI'd like love to hear your
thoughts on it.

SPEAKER_00 (23:19):
There are very few adult manatees or any manatees
that don't have scars from boatstrikes.
They move slow and sometimesthey surface and the prop gets
them.
Having said that, uh the boatstrike from a pro or prop scar
is generally not fatal.
It could be bad, but think of itlike a knife cut on your arm or

(23:42):
your leg.
Certainly don't want to do itagain, and not a pleasant
experience by any means, butunless you get an infection or
something else happens, it's notfatal.
However, manatees have solidbones.
Or you know, when we wereyounger, or at least I was
younger, you know, your boneshave some flex because they have
marrow in them.

(24:02):
Manatee bones do not havemarrow, so they're solid.
So if a boat strikes themanatee, it could crack the
ribs, and then that the ribshatters.
Does it puncture the spleen?
Does it puncture you know alung?
So the good news in this area,and one of the biologists, uh
Dr.

(24:23):
Robert Bondi, uh, he and RogerReap have literally written the
book on manatees and studiedthem for 30 years.
Uh they're both out ofGainesville area.
And he said, if I were amanatee, I'd want to be in
Crystal River.
And to expand on that, it'sbecause of the tourism industry
and the guides and captains.
We all go to training on what tolook for, and the training's

(24:45):
conducted by the uh FloridaWildlife Commission biologists
as well as the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Servicebiologists, and they'll tell us
what to look for in a manatee todetermine if it's ill.
So if it's listing in the water,if it's not swimming flat, if
it's swimming at an angle, thenperhaps it's lungs impaired and
it can't inflate the one lung,so it's you know, swimming with

(25:06):
a list.
Cold stress.
You know, similar to frostbite,but in a manatees it's cold
stress, and they're their skinstarts chafing.
Obviously, if they're emaciated.
Manatees have very little bodyfat.
All the fat is the biggestdeposits right behind their
neck.
So we'll refer to them as apeanut head because you got the

(25:26):
bulbous head and a real narrowneck now, and then out toward
the shoulder area.
So we look for those types ofthings and report them to the
biologist and folks on my team,and certainly all the other
companies in town, participatewith the rescue team and we'll
track the manatee sometimes overdays.

(25:47):
Find out, you know, where it'sgoing, is it improving?
Is it you know, is it doingbetter, is it doing worse, and
keep tabs on it for thebiologists and the rescue team,
actually help with the rescues.
And then uh we're also fortunatethat many of them do survive,
and when it's time to bereleased, they get to help with
the releases as well.

(26:08):
You know, so it's a okay, youknow, it's a celebration then.
So there was one day last yearthey released seven manatees in
one day that all come out ofrehab, and sometimes they put
trackers on and sometimes theydon't.
So uh human factors, the boatstrikes certainly an issue.
Uh a couple years ago there werea fair number mortality, it was

(26:29):
an unusual mortality event, uhUME on the east coast, because
uh eelgrass hadn't flourishedbecause of uh algae buildup and
stuff in the Indian River.
So the manatees were starving inthe winter because they needed
the warm water source at thesprings, but now there was no
food source where there was warmwater, so they had to make a
choice.

(26:50):
And either either option couldbe fatal with you know,
prolonged time without food orprolonged time in cold water.
So there were several hundredmanatees that died that winter
in one area, and some of that itdoes go back to human cause, not
necessarily a cause, can't putyour finger on it, but that
algae buildup was perhapsfertilizer, perhaps water draw,

(27:11):
less flow from the springs, youknow, etc.
etc.
And uh you know that's that'swhat happened.

SPEAKER_02 (27:18):
So can you not a good thing, but you know, I
mentioned the term sea cowearlier.
We didn't really talk about it,I just kind of mentioned it in
passing.
But you know, one of the thingswith cows in the winter when
they don't have a lot of crop,you just take in a bunch of hay
and you give them you just givethem food, and that's kind of
how they make it through thewinter often in uh in many

(27:38):
places.
Can you even do that?
Like you mentioned Indian River,there wasn't food because of the
algae.
Is the is it even possible to goin and just feed them during a
during an event like that?
Or I mean I don't know, is thata dumb question?

SPEAKER_00 (27:55):
Not legally.

SPEAKER_02 (27:56):
Okay, ooh, interesting.
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (27:58):
So it is illegal to feed or provide fresh water to
them.
During that event, thegovernment stepped in and did
institute a feeding program totry and limit some of the
mortality, but manatees eatabout a hundred pounds a day.
Well, that's what I was thinkingabout that.

SPEAKER_02 (28:16):
Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 (28:17):
That's a lot of yeah, that's a lot of romaine
lettuce.

SPEAKER_02 (28:21):
Is that what they is that what they would feed them?

SPEAKER_00 (28:23):
Yeah, primarily.
Uh yeah, because I mean that'swhat would be available.
A little bit more nutrition.
So our local manatees were wedid not have that event.
Um, so there's uh been a groupto called Safe Crusta River that
has uh sucked up the tritlematerial off the bottom, all the
muck, and planted eel grasses,and uh that's helped quite a

(28:45):
bit.
We've seen manatees' behaviorevolve a little bit just over
those six, seven years, becausenow there's a winter food source
that there hadn't beenpreviously.
But the manatees would takeabout a maybe every three days,
every five days, they would swimout to the Gulf, even though the
Gulf was too cold, and eat for anight or a day, and then come

(29:07):
back into the springs, and theywould make that trek, and that's
how they balance the the warmwater that they needed to
survive to thermal regulateversus the biological need for
food.
Okay, got it.

SPEAKER_02 (29:22):
You know, it it surprised me when you were
talking about they don't have alot of fat.
Right.
I was like, oh, that'scounterintuitive.

SPEAKER_00 (29:30):
Yeah, that surprises most people.

SPEAKER_02 (29:32):
Because it looks like they're literally all fat.
I mean, I've obviously they'vegot bones and and other parts
inside, but all right.

SPEAKER_00 (29:40):
That's uh No, literally only three to five
percent body fat.

SPEAKER_02 (29:44):
I I'm curious, and I'd like to share with our
listeners a little bit abouthere's the story in my head.
I've I've seen pictures ofmanatees and crystal, and I
imagine it being this kind ofsmall protected area where boats
don't really go in and outunless they're kind of going in
slow to see the manatees, asopposed to maybe it's called is

(30:04):
it the intercoastal or likewaterway along, which I think is
on the east side of Florida?
Is it intercoastal?

SPEAKER_00 (30:12):
Intercoastal down South Florida, Miami, Fort
Lauderdale.

SPEAKER_02 (30:16):
Right.
And I in my head I imagine moreboat strikes and more problems
there because people are usingthe intercoastal waterway to
move back and forth as opposedto just focused on the manatees.
Is that is that kind of close tocorrect, or am I just totally
missing the boat?
Missing the boat.
Anyway, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 (30:34):
It's a tough one.
Um we get into little battlesperiodically with some
environmentalists.
So Citrus County has the thirdor fourth highest manatee
mortality rate in the state.
However, we've got the highestpopulation as well.
Of manatees?
Of manatees.

SPEAKER_02 (30:54):
Not people.
Okay, yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 (30:56):
So, you know, you know, what's the then you get
into the cause.
So FWC does catalog each manateemortality, and they do do
necropsies on them to determinea cause of death where possible,
and it's all published on theFWC website.
You can look up every mortalevery manatee mortality by date
where it was found and cause,you know, through there.

(31:18):
Well, but our area has the onlyNational Wildlife Refuge set
aside for the protection ofmanatees, and that's uh the
Crystal River National WildlifeRefuge.
And there's a couple in additionto Three Sisters Springs, that's
part of that unit is a unit ofthe refuge, and the King Spring
and Warden Key that aresanctuaries for the manatees.

(31:39):
There are other wintersanctuaries that are set up that
aren't necessarily part of therefuge.
So depending on watertemperatures and the need for
the manatees, they become thoseswim zones as well in the
winter.
Okay.
So you know, they have buoys on,they put a sleeve over top that
says, you know, swimming allowedor whatever, and when it's too

(32:01):
cold, they take that sleeve off.
And you know, it's a pencil buoyin the water, and they can say,
um, yeah, you can't take boatsin there.
So we and there's some othercanals that are set up as no
boating, no swimming zones, thesanctuaries during the winter.
If you're a resident there, youcan take your boat in and out,
but other people can't just taketheir boats in there.

(32:23):
And most of our area has a lotof slow and idle speed zones
because of manatees.
So when we leave our shop, wehave about a mile, mile and a
quarter run on the boat that isall slow speed zone all year.
And some of them are seasonaland some of them are all year.
So this area has a lot ofprotections in place.

SPEAKER_02 (32:45):
I know that you have been involved in some of those
organizations that you justmentioned, probably others that
you haven't mentioned.
I think I saw something aboutyou going to sp speak in front
of Congress or something up inWashington, or I don't I don't
maybe we can discuss that, but Iguess I guess hey, you've got a
moment here.
Is there anything that you wishthat was being done differently

(33:05):
that you're willing to put outthere on a podcast that might
stick around for a few years?

SPEAKER_00 (33:08):
Anything you want to say?
Well, I mean, uh there'sdifferent things because of
fishing and stuff elsewhere.
There's proposals floatingaround DC about uh that could
potentially weaken the MarineMammal Protection Act.
It doesn't need to be weakened.
Be careful of what you're doingand impacts elsewhere.

(33:29):
You know, animals are on itbecause they need to be
protected.
So even though manatees aren'tendangered anymore officially,
they're listed as threatened.
And there's some lawsuitspopping around.
The protect the protectionsallowed them to go from a
population of about a thousandin the early 1970s to pro eight

(33:49):
to ten thousand now, maybe more.
So in 50 years, thatpopulation's gone up 500%.
No, no, a thousand percent.
Yeah.
So that's because of protectionsand because of knowledge.
So, you know, there's a balance,and it supports you know, here
at Crystal River, it's a largepart of the economy.
I mean, you know, we're I mean,it's trademarked or whatever,

(34:12):
you know, the manatee capital ofthe world, the city seal has a
manatee on it, the county sealhas a manatee on it.
You know, it yeah, so it reallydoesn't matter.
When I when I was up in DC, wewent around to uh some members'
offices, and you know, when wetalked and some of them the the

(34:32):
environmentalists were a littlebit cringy about, ooh, this
could be a prickly conversation.
It's like if you talk to themand it's economics as well as
environmental, there isn'tanybody on Congress that's gonna
say they're against smallbusinesses.

SPEAKER_01 (34:48):
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (34:49):
You know, and and and people making a living, but
it just needs to be done right.
And I I think for the most part,the industry here is trying to
do it right, and just like withanything, you've got people
across the spectrum, but by andlarge, uh the companies are
trying to do it right, andseveral of us, like twenty five
of us, have permits with US Fishand Wildlife, so we can actually

(35:13):
we can when the swim areas areopen, we can go into refuge
waters, not when they're set upas a sanctuary, right?
But we can take guests intoThree Sisters and see the
manatees.
And there's some areas we can'tgo, but you know, and that's all
part of the permit, and as apart of that process, there are
things we need to do.

(35:33):
We have to have a guide in thewater.
We're not just turning guestsloose saying, you know, there's
manatees over yonder.
Right.
I mean, so yeah, that that'spart of doing it right, and
we're providing flotationdevices.
We're telling them to watch themanatee manners video.
Don't swim down and you know,bother a manatee that's on the

(35:57):
bottom.
If it's on the bottom, it'seating or it's sleeping, don't
bother it.
Don't chase, don't separate amom and a calf.
And yeah, a lot of it it soundsreally basic and it is really
basic, but as you mentionedearlier, you know, in the
excitement, it's something new.
Yeah, it I get it.
Sometimes that's how the brainshuts off.

SPEAKER_02 (36:16):
Yeah, and I think anybody listening to this has
had moments where they getexcited about something in their
in their life and they, youknow, the brain shuts off.
The brain is pretty good atthat, just shutting off when it
gets overwhelmed.
It's uh yeah.
I guess I don't want tooversimplify you know, and this
this is not necessarily a placeto come in and discuss a lot of
politics.

(36:36):
I don't want to oversimplify it,but honestly, the question
running through my head is ifyou're I don't want to, I don't
know if I want to use the wordlobbying, but if you're lobbying
Congress, I'm just or lobbyingorganizations, to me that
indicates there's a differentside.
Because I'm like, well, whowouldn't want to keep the
manatees safe?
And what like why wouldn't youwant to protect them and this

(36:58):
and that?
So but there's always anotherside to it.
It could be farmers that arebeing limited on how they can do
things and their businesses, ormaybe it's um transportation
company.
I don't know.
What's the can we touch on whatthe other side is?

SPEAKER_00 (37:11):
If there is one, yeah, there's a whole spectrum,
right?
I mean, so you've got you know,you know, zero to a hundred on
it.
I think some of it came out offishing rights associated with
buy catch and things like that,uh, you know, in the Pacific
where there's competition withyou know, international
fisheries and commercialfishing.

(37:32):
So I think some of it came outof that, some of it because
there's a cost protection andmonitoring of different things,
so I think some of it's uh youknow, dollars as well, yeah.
So you know that there'sdifferent factors, and I guess
where I'd cause you can't treateverything the same, you know,
with it, you know, it's allmarine mammals are in one act,

(37:56):
and sometimes it's a littlewording changes.
So if you're going from thetheory of you're trying to
enhance and grow the population,and you tweak a couple of words,
and now it's more justpreserving the population, so
then you're kind of saying,well, 10,000's enough, that's
all we need.
Or does it need that little bitstronger language that's in

(38:19):
there now that is trying toencourage growth and uh you know
the population rebounding still?
And you said it's across all ofthe marine mammals?
So if they say Marine MammalProtection Act's all marine
mammals, dolphins, whales.

SPEAKER_02 (38:34):
So is it is it as simple as saying if the act says
we want to increase numbers by10%, then is it 10% of dolphins,
ten percent of whales, tenpercent of uh manatees, or or is
there some breakdown?

SPEAKER_00 (38:50):
Yeah, I don't I don't think it I don't think it
gets into a percentage, but thelanguage to encourage them
rebound from extinction or beinga threatened status implies
growing the population if you'retrying to rebound it, versus
just preserving the populationwhere we're at now is good

(39:10):
enough.

SPEAKER_02 (39:11):
Yeah, okay.
Well thank you.

SPEAKER_00 (39:13):
I know we're dreading treading on uh Yeah,
and and I'll you know, I'm not abiologist, I'm not a lobbyist,
or you know, I'm not a you knowa lawyer, you know, delving into
the details of it.
But you know, there certainlyare folks that do.
All right, you know, and and lotand lots of organizations, you
know, with uh you know lawyerson both sides.

(39:34):
Yep.

SPEAKER_02 (39:34):
So we can't say you have a vested interest in uh
helping you support the manateepopulation there in Crystal
River and and uh and elsewhere.
So that's that's a fairstatement to say.
Okay.
All right, Mike, let's let's getinto the childhood traumas and
all the the cool stuff thathappened to you when you were
young to figure out how the heckdid you end up there.

(39:55):
Let's start with.
I usually ask how far backshould we go, but I'm just gonna
ask you, did you grow up inCrystal River?
Did you are you a Florida bornand raised, or where did you
grow up?

SPEAKER_00 (40:05):
Well, anybody who's listened to me pretty much
figures out where I'm from.
So uh I I I grew up inPennsylvania.

unknown (40:12):
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (40:13):
So family's you know what, you're right.
I I now I just family'soriginally from Philly, uh, so I
definitely like my O sounds.
Uh so it's Crystal River WaterSports, W O D R you know, okay
versus water.
So yeah, I I definitely have amore Philadelphia accent than
anything else.
So I grew up in Pennsylvania andvo always liked the water, you

(40:35):
know, did swim team and stuffback in the day.
From the environmental side ofit, probably my first
recollection, it was uh nowwould be middle school, junior
high-ish age, you know, sixth,seventh, eighth grade, somewhere
in there.
I went to a by one of Cousteau'ssons, and I can't even remember
which one, up at LehighUniversity.

(40:55):
And I can't remember a word thatwas said because between
addressing college students andwith a French accent, it went
way, way over my head.
But uh I've always beeninterested in marine biology,
you know, aquatic stuff.
So that's always been in, youknow, the back of my mind from a

(41:16):
a hobby or things to dostandpoint.

SPEAKER_02 (41:19):
Was that do you remember?
Like, I don't know, I guess thequestion is, do you remember the
first time you heard about amanatee, saw a picture of a
manatee, uh something ontelevision, documentary?
Do you do you remember thatmoment?

SPEAKER_00 (41:33):
No, I don't, not specifically with manatees.
Um I know the first time Iremember swimming with them, my
daughter was second grade, Ithink, and my son and wife
stayed in Orlando and playedmini golf for the day, and the
two of us drove to Crystal Riverand swam with manatees.
So that would have been ooh.

(41:53):
She may not be happy.
That was 37 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 (41:58):
We're not yeah, don't say anything that's gonna
out her, okay?
But alright.
So did you have siblings growingup or Yeah, I the three younger
sisters.
Alright, and so you were theoldest in the family.
Do you rem I mean you mentionedgoing to the presentation, uh
the Cousteau presentation atLehigh, but but before that, do

(42:20):
you remember like what happenedthat other than maybe swimming
classes?
Because just because you learnto swim doesn't mean you are
fascinated by marine biology.
So do you remember a moment orsomebody in your life that got
you turned on to all this stuffhappening in the in the sea?

SPEAKER_00 (42:35):
Not specifically.
I had an an aunt that was a highschool science teacher.
Okay, yeah, so you know thatstuff, and I I always like
science in general.
So, you know, Eagle Scout level,etc.
It was like I want to be amarine biologist, you know, and
outdoor stuff.
And then when I got into highschool and college, it's like,

(42:57):
well, I want to be able to makemoney too, and marine biology is
not the way to do it.
Uh so yeah, the so you chosetourism.

SPEAKER_02 (43:04):
Sounds great, but I also want to make money.
So, what was that shift?
What it what was the idea thatpopped in your head?
Well, maybe I should do thisinstead.

SPEAKER_00 (43:11):
Well, I I I always like science, so I think I had
six or seven science courses inthree years of high school.
Okay, yep.
We did junior high, senior high,so it was only three years.
It wasn't I didn't I wasn'tadvanced, that that's not the
issue.
And uh so I I ended up uhstarting off in computer
science.
That was the thing to do in theearly 80s.

(43:32):
Uh-huh.
But that wasn't quite me.
So I ended up uh You sound likeme.

SPEAKER_02 (43:39):
You sound like me, Mike.
I did computer science for onesemester before I figured out it
wasn't me, so go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 (43:45):
Yeah, I may have been slower.
I think it took two, but uh butbut uh somewhere in there.
So I ended up switching to atthat point it was quantitative
business analysis, managementscience, statistics.
So certainly, you know, thatside of the brain, you know, the
the quantitative side of thebrain versus the creative side,
and ended up doing that.
The economy wasn't great when Ifinished my undergrad.

(44:08):
So I did what everybody shoulddo and go to grad school to
avoid the real world for anotheryear or so.

SPEAKER_02 (44:14):
And did you continue the same type of stuff?
Uh what did you do in gradschool?

SPEAKER_00 (44:19):
So yeah, what comes around bites you a little bit.
Uh so I got a job in the DC areabetween my courses and my
thesis, and uh ended up movingto the DC area and doing
computer programming uh for alot of department defense
entities, uh, for contractorsthere, and then kind of migrated

(44:39):
back to the quantitative side bydoing simulation and process
analysis.
So delving into the numbers,what's the cause of a problem,
and then coming up withsolutions to it as opposed to
just the programming solution.
So I kind of went toward the thefunctional end of things, the
you know, the front end of itversus just implementing a

(45:00):
solution.
So I I did that.

SPEAKER_02 (45:03):
I simplify that.
Down to you were an analyst forthe defense department.
Did you say defense?

SPEAKER_00 (45:08):
Yeah, and other entities, yeah.
It was a contract.
A government analyst.
All right.

SPEAKER_02 (45:13):
Okay.
Did you but did you enjoy it atthe time?
Do you look back and have fondmemories of that?

SPEAKER_00 (45:18):
Yeah, I really enjoyed it.
And you know, and I continued tothe team I worked with, the
folks I worked with, they wereall great.
Clients were great.
But as I got a little bit moresenior, I ended up having the
right proposals, and it was morethe business development side
versus the uh the problemsolving side of it and the
interaction with people.

(45:39):
So I so that's what formed thetransition is I wanted to do
something that was a little bitmore people-oriented.

SPEAKER_02 (45:47):
Were you when you were doing because I heard you
say problem solving, figuringout analyzing the numbers,
figuring out solutions, problemsolving?
I that sounds a lot well.
I guess what I'm asking, wereyou able to apply that to
environmental things, likethings we're discussing now, and
we're talking about protectionsof you know, marine mammal
protection.
Was there anything at allscience or marine biology?

(46:09):
No connection whatsoever.
Okay, all right.
I just wanted to ask that beforewe move on.

SPEAKER_00 (46:14):
But then, I mean, I always wanted to scuba dive.
I never had the money when I wasyounger, so I finally learned to
dive.
Kids were young at the time,like real young, and you know,
did a couple, you know, somedives in Virginia or off the
North Carolina coast, weekends.
And then when daughter was 13,uh 14, I guess, she joined the
the venturing program of scouts,and the unit was involved with

(46:38):
scuba diving.
Uh cool.
So then she got certified, andthen like a year later, my son
got certified.
So with the two kids of my wife,three out of four gave us a
quorum.
So then we were we were able todo dive trips.

SPEAKER_02 (46:51):
And did your wife just I we don't need to go too
much into uh her what she likesand what she doesn't like, but
did she she just didn't want togo diving, just was not her
thing?

SPEAKER_00 (47:02):
She really doesn't swim, and she's probably in the
background, and I'll havesomething to do with it.
She's gonna listen to this, sobe careful.
I'll I'll have something thrownat me coming in from the side.
She's not a swimmer.

SPEAKER_02 (47:14):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (47:16):
So uh she was fine with it.
She was fine with um umbrelladrinks, hammocks, palm trees,
and a book.
Yeah.
Well that works quite that worksfine.
Okay, yeah.
We we were hoping she'd be ourgear serpa, but that never
panned out.

SPEAKER_02 (47:30):
If it it sounds like it was a pretty good match
because if she was into campingin the mountains, that would
have been a problem.
Yeah, no.
Alright, so you so your girlswere diving, you were diving.
Yeah, son and daughter, one ofeach.
Yep.
Okay, son and daughter, and youwere still uh an analyst working
contract jobs for thegovernment.

SPEAKER_00 (47:49):
But with the scouts, we did we took a group of scouts
to Bon Air for a week of diving.
Wow, we went to Roatan, we wentto Mexico with groups, and you
know, and weekend dive trips,you know, just you know, local
quarries and stuff like that.
So through scouts, they got todive.

SPEAKER_01 (48:09):
Mm-hmm.
And super cool.

SPEAKER_00 (48:11):
On a scouting vein, a friend of mine actually wrote
the scuba muritge back in theday.
Some somewhere on my computer, Iprobably have the PDF that he
sent me before it was evenpublished, you know, of the
original scuba murit badge.
And then uh uh, you know, Dr.
Talon, he actually uh helpedorganize the Boy Scout Jamboree,

(48:32):
the scuba function there.
So in 2005, my daughter and Iwere on staff at the Scout
Jamboree on Scuba Staff, andthen in 2010 my son, my
daughter, and I were all on thescuba staff.
So that introduced us tointroducing people to scuba and
the aquatic world.

(48:53):
So I think the one year it wassomething like 18,000 youth did
it discover scuba in 10 days.
Wow.
We had four we had four at oneevent?

SPEAKER_02 (49:06):
Yep.
I'm trying to get my head aroundthis.

SPEAKER_00 (49:08):
Okay, the the National Jamboree at that point
was about 40,000 attendees.
I had no idea.
Okay.
Okay.
So the scuba staff was near 300people.
Oh wow.
Okay.
Just on scuba, and we had fourthey're shallow pools, only four
feet deep, but we had fourgood-sized pools that we had

(49:28):
teams, and every 20 minutes wewere putting another oh, we had
what six or eight instructors ina pool with five each.
We were putting another 120 kidsin the water every 20 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 (49:41):
So the bit I know about kind of the you said it
was the Discover Scuba is whatthey they were doing, right?

SPEAKER_00 (49:46):
Yeah, Discover Scuba Light.

SPEAKER_02 (49:48):
Yeah, okay, okay.
And you were at that point, wereyou and um your son and your
daughter, when you say we were sI think you use the term
staffing it or working it, wereyou like dive masters at that
point?
Or did or what was what it whatdid that look like?
I'm just curious how howobviously you were very
involved.
I'm just curious if you were soYeah, it's the first time no.

SPEAKER_00 (50:13):
Didn't have a pro card at all.
My daughter got her dive master,or I got mine, and my daughter
got hers.
She was just 18.
And I guess 2010, she wasprobably an instructor.
Okay.
Yeah, she was.
By the time the 2010 Jamboree,yeah, she would have been an
instructor.

(50:34):
And then my son eventually gothis instructor card, you know,
cert as well.
I didn't do it till after wemoved to Florida and I had the
business.

unknown (50:43):
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (50:43):
And I got it more so from a standards and you know,
and just owning the companystandpoint than the actual, you
know, wanting to jump in andteach.
You know, I'll let others do theteaching, but I at least have
the training and I know what thestandards are and how things
should be done.

SPEAKER_02 (51:02):
And that makes sense.
I think any business owner thatowns a a let's just say a
tourism company or an activitycompany that that does things
that are potentially dangerous.
You know, you've got there'sthere's real risks involved and
stuff like that.
I think that the owner should beunderstanding of what that looks
like.
So when they go hire diveinstructors, they they have some

(51:24):
kind of idea of what theexpectations are and and safety.
Yeah, I get I get that.
Okay, so I wanna I want tounderstand how you moved from
working as a contractor inWashington to to Florida and
doing what you're doing.
So what are the what are thelike when was the moment you
decided, okay, I'm done withthis analysis contracting stuff,

(51:44):
and I'm gonna go do somethingdifferent?
And what was that that youenvisioned doing when you were
ready to go?

SPEAKER_00 (51:50):
So I I told Sandy, you know, the wife, that uh you
know, eventually I'm the wife,yeah.
The wife, she's gonna listen tothis.
I'm just saying, Mike.
We've been married 41 years orsomething.
Okay, all right, okay.
So so I was twice divorced, soI'm really sensitive.
So there's worse terms that canprobably be used at times by her

(52:11):
anyway.
And uh and I wanted to dosomething that was more
people-oriented.
So momentarily the kids were outof the house, so we were empty
nesters.

SPEAKER_02 (52:22):
Wait, moment oh, momentarily, like they were on
spring break, or they were theyhad grown up and moved out.

SPEAKER_00 (52:28):
We we thought we had launched.

SPEAKER_02 (52:30):
No, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 (52:31):
Little did I know we had a failure to launch.
Uh but let's keep going.

SPEAKER_02 (52:34):
All right, so so at one point the kids had moved out
of the house.
I get that, okay.

SPEAKER_00 (52:40):
So I started looking around for something that was
gonna be more people oriented,uh, you know, preferably near
the water.
So, you know, scuba, snorkeling,you know, tourism, gift shop,
maybe a hotel, you know,whatever.
And I'd started poking around.
But it was tough to leave thejob and the paycheck, you know,

(53:02):
up in DC.
And then things, you know,business-wise weren't going
great, and there were gonna becutbacks, and you know,
eventually I got the callsaying, Oh, I'm gonna need to
lay you off.
I'm like, okay.
What date and I mean I think Igot that call like early August,
and by the middle of the month Iwas coming down to Florida to

(53:23):
visit businesses.
So, you know, it it yeah, it youknow, it's like, okay, what do I
want to do versus what am Idoing?

SPEAKER_02 (53:32):
Mike, I gotta I gotta ask this before we go any
yeah, I gotta ask this before wego any further, because I think
what you said, you know, you'reyou're thinking I would like to
do something more people-basedalong the coast, maybe tourism,
diving.
There's an awful lot of peoplethat might be listening to this
right now that are working asanalysts in Washington,

(53:54):
thinking, yep, yep, I I thinkabout that every day.
But some of them will never doit because they don't get laid
off.
Do you think that if that layoffhad not come, would it have
number one been harder?
Would you have actually takenthe leap or or would you have
just kept thinking about it?
But then when they said, Okay,you gotta go, was that like I

(54:15):
don't know.
You tell me.
I don't know if you understandwhat I'm trying to get at.

SPEAKER_00 (54:19):
Yeah, uh it's a hypothetical, so I don't know
what I would have done for sure.
It was you know, the DC areaoffers a lot, a lot to do, but
it's a rat race, so you know itit is what it is, but obviously
the pay and the benefits and allwere you know really good.

(54:39):
Yeah, I'm not making near asmuch money as a business owner
as I used to make.
So, you know, it was hard topull the plug, or would have
been hard to pull the plug hadit solely been just for choice.
I mean, because we packed up andmoved.
You know, Sandy's from northernPennsylvania, she's from a rural
area, so she wanted to go tosomething, you know, she wanted

(55:01):
something less populated and youknow a little bit more low-key
than you know the DC metro area.
So, yeah, that was a benefit forher as well.
But you know, it it's a plug,you know.
Yeah, pure.

SPEAKER_02 (55:17):
Here's where I'm going, here's this what's going
through my head is I've got thisprobably pretty you know secure,
a lot of security around, well,I don't here's the thing.
I've got this job, I'm makinggood money, and I go to my wife
and say, Hey, I want to quit andmove to Florida and open a dive

(55:38):
shop, or or whatever, right?
And I'm thinking there might besome resistance there, just in
some cases, where if I go to herand say, you know how I've been
dreaming about this thing, well,I just got my pink slip, so I
guess we gotta go.
It's probably a little easierlike to approach her.
And I'm not talking about Sandy,I'm just talking about just
relationships in general, can bethat way.

(55:59):
And you're smiling for anybodythat's listening to this, can't
see it on your face.

SPEAKER_00 (56:02):
I really can't remember.
I do know I we were in a cartogether when I got the call.

SPEAKER_01 (56:07):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (56:08):
My supervisor's name was Mike at the time, and he
said, Oh, you know, I need totalk.
You know, where are you?
I said, Oh, I'm in the car.
I think we're up in New Jersey.
And he said, Oh, well, you know,we can talk Monday or whatever.
And I'm like, that's okay, wecan talk now.
He's like, Well, I'd you know,I'd rather, you know, we wait.
And it's like, no, we're good.

(56:29):
I said, What's up?
And you know, did you have anyclue?
Did you like if looking back, doyou think you kind of knew
something the writing was on thewall?
Every year the company would gothrough cost cutting at the end
of the fiscal year and look at,you know, where were numbers,
where was growth?
At that point, because I wasdoing business development, my

(56:50):
hours weren't billable, youknow, so I was all overhead
hours.
So I meant yeah, I I was now acost center versus a profit
center.
Yeah, so and I had already goneto HR and said, hey, this is my
title, this is my start date.
If something happened, whatwould be compensation?

(57:11):
Because it was a big enoughcompany, it was a big enough
company, I knew it was going tobe structured.
And they said, Oh, okay.
Well, if you're laid off, youwould get this much severance
and this much for insurance andstuff like that.
So I already knew what would becoming on the backside from HR.

SPEAKER_02 (57:27):
Sandy, did Sandy know you were having these
conversations with HR?

SPEAKER_00 (57:31):
Pro probably.
I don't I don't.
I mean, uh now she does.

SPEAKER_02 (57:35):
Okay, yeah.
So anyway, so he called.

SPEAKER_00 (57:38):
So Mike called you.
It wasn't a secret, it wasn'tyou know anything like that.
Did I explicitly say it?
I don't know.
That was 14 years ago.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (57:48):
Uh-huh.
Sure.
You're playing.
Uh-huh.
Right.
Okay.
I'll play along with you.
So Mike called, and at the endof that call, and you you told
Sandy what it was on the call.
Did you both smile?
Was it a mixed?
Was it were you smiling?
She was crying.
Was she smiling?
You were crying?
I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_00 (58:03):
No, I don't, I don't think neither one of us were
that emotional either way.
I mean, I I know I asked him, Isaid, Well, it may have been
June.
It's like, well, what's theeffective date?
He said, Well, it would be twoweeks.
I said, Well, that's the middleof July.
Can you make it Monday, August2nd or 3rd, or whatever it is?
He's like, Why?
I said, Because then my Augustinsurance is already paid for.

(58:26):
Yeah, you're smart.
And then that that was on thefirst call.
So, you know, go back to theanalytical brain of I know,
that's what I was thinking.
You know, what what's the nextstep?
You know, what's the math behindthings?
So it kind of sounded like you'dalready thought it out, Mike.
I'm just saying.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, we we had talkedabout it, so and out of race
started, you know, pokingaround, you know, where were

(58:49):
options and things like that.
I mean, I looked at some placesoffshore.
I talked to a friend who had adive south in Mexico.
I had looked at a couple inHawaii, you know, so it so I
wasn't fixated on Florida.
It was more coastal andwater-based.

SPEAKER_02 (59:05):
Okay.
So it sounded like kind of whatyou're talking about, you know,
it was kind of dive shop, giftshop, maybe a small lodge, hotel
type of thing.
And so that's basically whatyou're looking at in just a
variety of different areas.
Alright.
Was the Crystal River oper wasand Crystal Rivers the first one
you pulled the trigger on?

SPEAKER_00 (59:27):
Well, it's the only one we pulled the trigger on.
Well, I shouldn't say the firstbecause you're still there.
Yeah.
Was it the one you pulled thetrigger on, I guess?
Yeah.
So I looked at probably six orseven businesses in Florida.
So I flew down, I met with anattorney, uh, whom I happen to
know through Scouts as well.
He's a business attorney downhere in Lakeland.
And the Crystal River one poppedup at the last minute.

(59:50):
Like the trip was alreadyplanned.
And uh, so I met with them, andthen I went and checked out some
places in Venice, Florida, a fewin the Keys, a couple in South
Florida.
So I kind of did a little tourof Florida looking at dive shops
that were potentially for sale.
And at that point, Crystal Riverwasn't even on the radar, it

(01:00:11):
popped up at the last minute,and then started digging into
it.
And uh, one of the appeals is alot of water sports businesses
are summer.
You know, they're Memorial Dayto Labor Day in the US.
And you know, when I talked tothe one in Venice, they said 80%
of our revenue is Memorial Dayto Labor Day.

(01:00:31):
And I'm like, God, when do youtake it over?
Yeah, because you take it overout of season, you've got no
cash flow for months, and it'slike, did I screw this up?
Or do you take it over thebeginning of season you're
overwhelmed and like you havethe opportunity to break
everything?
So so then that's your lastseason.
So what set Crystal River aparta little bit is it's um it's

(01:00:53):
bimodal, there's two peaks.
So the manatee tourism is bigwhen it's cold when kids are out
of school.
So Thanksgiving, Christmas,spring break season.
And then we hit a lull, whichyou know we're in now, and then
in the summer, you can snorkelin the Gulf of Mexico for

(01:01:13):
scallops.
So we call that an underwaterEaster egg hunt.
So they're base scallops.
They're yeah, we if they'reunder two inches, we won't keep
them.
So they're you know, yay big atbest.
And the meat early in the year.

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:28):
So yay, yay big, you said just because some people
are looking at the screen rightnow, but um, so a couple couple
inches across?

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:36):
At a minimum, two inches across.
Okay.
So they're not the scallops youwould get in a restaurant,
they're base scallops.
Obviously, sweet scallops, uh,you know, shell gas station
sign.
At every crook is a blue eye.

(01:01:58):
So there's a so they have like20-some pair of blue eyes, so
you look for the blue eyes.
So it's it's like an underwaterEaster egg hunt.
They're on the bottom.
You snorkel, you swim down, youget them.
It's not like clamming up in thenortheast or whatever where you
dig your heel in the sand in thetidal area.
No, you're actually in the watersnorkeling.
So, what does that look like?

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:18):
Does that like people just sign up to?
I know like when I've gone likeon a deep sea fishing boat, they
call it like a party boat whereyou just you book a couple
spots, you go out, and you gofishing.
Is it kind of like that wherepeople just book in and you take
them out to the area and thenthey get out and swim around and
look for scallops, or what doesthat look like?

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:37):
Some places do do it more party boat.
Uh for the most part, it's smallboats because of the limits, but
we do all private, and that wayit's not like, oh, they got
scallops, I didn't, I wantshallow water, they want deep
water, you know.
So we only do private boats justto simplify the guest
experience.
And we put a guide in the waterwith them.
So it's very the guide typicallygets half of whatever the boat

(01:03:02):
catches for the day.

SPEAKER_01 (01:03:03):
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (01:03:04):
So there could be six other people on the boat,
and the guide will typically getas many as the other six people.
Or yeah, or eight as anindividual basis, yeah.
Okay.
And part of that is just youknow, you're used to doing it,
you know what to look for, youyou know, your eyes get tuned a
little bit.
Yeah, I see what you're saying.
Okay, I see what you're saying.

(01:03:24):
Yeah, so yeah, okay.
And and it's a little bit, youknow, how, you know, you can be
a little bit more systematic.
And some people they're out onthe boat in the Gulf of Mexico.
There's some days, the most daysthe water's gin clear, crystal
clear water.
It's 88, 90 degrees.
So there's a worse way to spendan afternoon for sure, even if

(01:03:46):
you don't find a scallop.

SPEAKER_02 (01:03:47):
I'm I'm curious because you said the water's
crystal clear, and I think ofthe Gulf of Mexico.
I've seen some kind of theestuaries, areas around the
coast of western Florida thatare quite clear.
Um, but then I think of the Gulfas being a little bit muddy, and
that's just in my own head.
But is it because of the CrystalRiver and all the springs that
are flowing out into that area?

(01:04:08):
Is that why it's so clear?

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:09):
No.
Well, this area, yeah, theunderwater topography is a
little different.
It's very shallow and it's avery gradual slope.
So in this area, the gulf onlydrops about a foot per mile.
So you've got to go a long wayout to get deep water.
So we don't have waves.
I mean, we'll get some chop fromwind, but we really don't have

(01:04:30):
wave action.
And scallops grow on grass beds.
So you've got lots of eelgrass,turtle grass out there, and that
filters the water in and keepsthe sediment down as well.
Sure, sure.

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:43):
So did you did you say these are all snorkeling or
diving?

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:48):
You may you may dive, but you're in shallow
water, you're generally four toeight feet of water.
So you can swim along thesurface, spot a scallop, duck
dive down, grab it, put it in amesh bag, and continue on.

SPEAKER_02 (01:05:02):
So are there I some places that I've had experience,
like in Belize, for example,which is where I've had really
all of my diving experience anda lot of snorkeling.
And it was there were strictregulations about you couldn't
take things under like if youwere scuba diving, you couldn't
harvest anything, as far as Irecall.
I'm not even sure you couldspearfish, but is do they have

(01:05:23):
rules like that in Florida?
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:26):
So FWC, Florida Wildlife Commission, has you
know rules for you know all thevarious catch limits, and
scallops have their rules.
So there's no rule on the sizeof the scallop.
Reality is if it's too small,it's a lot of work to shuck it
to find like a tiny piece ofmeat.
Some people get fixated onnumbers and things, but at any

(01:05:48):
rate, so there's no limit onsize.
There is a catch limit.
So right now the catch limit istwo gallons in a shell per
person, or a total of tengallons for the boat.
So that gets back to the partyboat.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:02):
The party boats don't work out so well because
it's like, well, okay, we'redone.
We we've and you've got threepeople with a full bucket and 14
with a handful of them with abucket.

SPEAKER_00 (01:06:12):
All right, yeah, that doesn't sound good.
I can yeah, and then theybecause it's open water, then
it's a Coast Guard inspection,some other things come into play
as well.
Yeah, yeah.
But that's the real limit, isjust two gallons per person, ten
gallons per boat.
And some of the areas havestaggered that limit, so it's a
little bit less early in theseason because the scalps will

(01:06:34):
almost double in size over thecourse of the season.
So you're pulling out a wholelot more.
If you get the limit in July,you're pulling out nearly twice
as many as if you got the limitin September.
Okay, gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 (01:06:47):
So what percentage of your summer because we talked
about by I think you by what wasthe word you used for two
seasons, two peaks?
Bimodal.
Yeah, sorry.
I almost said I was thinkingbipolar, but that's not the
word.
I'm looking at it.
It could be.
Well, it for a lot of People aregoing to ski is what percentage
of your summer business isscalloping, or are there other

(01:07:09):
activities as well that youoffer?

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:11):
So we're we certainly uh we do manatee tours
all year round.
You do okay.
We do scallop charters, we alsodo guided scuba dives and dive
training.
So we'll take people to thelocal springs.
So Rainbow River is a spring-fedriver, it's crystal clear, it's
all freshwater fish and turtles.
So I think we have three groupsgoing out there this weekend

(01:07:34):
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
And you know, other springs inthe area.
So there's the opportunity forscuba diving and dive training.
Scallop season is a big push forthe whole area, whether you're
doing it chartered or justanother business.
So I have a boat ramp.
So that first set that firstSaturday, which I think is the

(01:07:57):
2nd of July this year, I don'tknow, whatever date it is, I'll
have 125 boats go out of theboat ramp.
So just 125 people paying launchfees, buying ice, buying sodas.
They forgot a mask, a die flag,sunscreen, you know, whatever.
You know, it's a big even if I'mnot running a scallop charter,

(01:08:18):
it's still a big plus, you know,to the bottom line.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:21):
Got it.
All right.
That's that's pretty cool.
So let's go back to you werelooking at this, you're looking
at a bunch of businesses inFlorida.
You saw this one, it wasbimodal.
See, I got the word right.
It had a bimodal season, and uhso yeah, so walk us through
that.
It sounds like you spoke to alawyer, you started getting
things set up.
What should people know aboutwhat that process looked like?

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:41):
Well, what it should look like and what I did could
be two different things.

SPEAKER_02 (01:08:44):
Well, actually, that's the value that you're
bringing.
What are the mistakes you made?
Because someone listening tothis wants to go do something
similar.

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:51):
So, you know, I did that first trip, got the basics
from the businesses, and thenSandy and I came down, and what
we did in the different areaswas we met with a real estate
agent and started talking abouthousing.
Because the reality was we weregonna have the business
investment, but we were gonnahave to relocate and buy a house
eventually, too.
Yep.
So we did that just to get afeel for the different areas and

(01:09:15):
what housing options were.
So it was so we we came to Christhe River, we went to I forget
if we went to Venice or not.
I may have ruled that out by thetime she got involved.
She's shaking her head now.
She didn't go to Venice.
We we we went to the Keys and wewent to South Florida.
So, you know, we did it as a youknow, okay, what's our net net

(01:09:38):
as far as buying a house andbuying a business?
So it was actually a reallycheap business opportunity near
Fort Lauderdale, but the housingwas three times as high.
So so you know, we did that.
So we eventually she liked thisarea because it is more rural,
and uh and you know, and thebusiness had appeal.

(01:09:59):
The couple that owned it weregreat.
Uh so we came up with uh anintent to purchase, and I forget
if I had even signed anon-disclosure with them or not
at that point and started, yeah,working through the details, and
then my son and I came down inI'll say November time frame and

(01:10:19):
did a hard inventory becauseeverything was paper-based.
Like they you know, they hadstuff, but it you know, it was
uh all on paper.
There was no digital inventoryto say, we have this many shirts
and this many plush, and youknow, yep.
X dollars in wetsuits, etcetera.

SPEAKER_02 (01:10:39):
And you're the analyst, you're the analyst, a
computer analyst, systemsanalyst, walking into this
trying to get your head aroundit.

SPEAKER_00 (01:10:45):
Yeah, so uh so John and I came down and did an
inventory of all of themerchandise that was for sale.
And it was something like 1500skews, sixteen hundred skews.
It it was fishing hooks to fivefoot plush manatees.
Part of that got a littlepunchy, and this is where you

(01:11:06):
know, like being weird or havinga weird sense of humor comes
into play.
It trickled to my son.
So I was counting and describingthings, and he's typing in a
spreadsheet, and I review itlater, and I see club, comma,
baby seal.
So it was a wooden club forpeople that go shark fishing, so

(01:11:27):
they can knock out the shark.
So he puts it in as baby sealclub, and and then there was a
metal thing you didn't it's agood thing you didn't have a
website that he was updatinginventory on the website.

SPEAKER_02 (01:11:38):
That could have been really bad for business.

SPEAKER_00 (01:11:40):
No doubt.
And then there was a a metallobster that was probably two
and a half feet long, and hegoes to pick it up to see if
there's a skew on the bottom ora price or something on her
manufacture.
And next thing I when I look atthe inventory, it's in there is
a big A lobster.

(01:12:00):
A big ass lobster.
So, anyway, so uh we did bondingmoments with your son.
Yeah.
So we ended up we we ended upstructuring the deal with a a
bunch of different schedules.
So a schedule for themerchandise, you know, what was
the inventory, a schedule forthe assets, the wetsuits, the
boat, the boat motors, andthings like that, the
intellectual property, so likethe phone number, the the

(01:12:23):
marketing, the website, yeah.
You know, the licenses that wellthe government needed to provide
if you were buying a business,they essentially convey.
I mean, yeah.
The government you know has thefinal say, you don't own the
license, but they seldom, youknow, get in the way of a sale.
You know, working it, you know,with the landlord in the lease

(01:12:46):
and things like that.
So I think we had like schedulesA through I or something in the
contract, you know, becausethere were seven or eight
different URLs on websites andsocial media accounts and
passwords and you know a lot ofa lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:04):
So from that was in November.
When was your first day, liketaking the keys and showing up
at the shop and meeting all yournew people?

SPEAKER_00 (01:13:12):
Well, during one of the met some people before, but
during the visits, uh weessentially just had a little
pizza get together with theexisting staff.
And the former owners, you know,introduced us and said we were
you know we were gonna be takingover, you know, would like
everybody to stay, but you know,to try and smooth that
transition so I didn't come inwith you know zero staff.

(01:13:35):
And I I was coming in right atthe beginning of season.
So we went to closing on the 6thor 7th of January, and they had
blocked the calendar out forthat that day and the next day.
But they continued to market,and this is where you know they
were they were great, they aregreat.
They had essentially a fullcalendar and trip scheduled from

(01:13:57):
like the 8th on forward.
So I I had the one day to getthe financial stuff squared away
for a credit card reader to goto the right bank and all that
good stuff.
But there was already stuff onthe calendar, you know, when we
walked in.
And you know, when the crew wasscheduled and things like that.
And uh all the crew stayed on.

(01:14:17):
I mean, you know, some driftedaway over time, but there wasn't
like a mass exodus that uh allof a sudden I I had a business
and nobody to execute.
So, you know, staff was great,but uh Ken and Julie were great
on that transition as well,because they could have shut
down marketing once they knewthey were selling.
Yeah.
But but they ran um you know,Facebook ads, Google ads, or

(01:14:41):
whatever right up until like theweekend before closing.

SPEAKER_02 (01:14:45):
I won't I won't ask, sometimes when somebody sells a
business, it's it's based on youknow a little bit of revenue
sharing, or they want to makesure that the person that takes
it over is successful so thenote gets paid off.
But but we don't need to go intothat.
I don't know what was going onthere.

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:00):
But we didn't do any of that.
Yeah, okay.
Yeah, so cool.
Essentially found a good spot, agood situation.
It it was a cash sale, if youwill.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:15:09):
All right, and very, very cool.

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:11):
So there wasn't that, but they continue I just
had breakfast with them a couplemonths ago.
They're still in the area.
They they wanted to retire andwanted to go travel and do some
other things.
So, you know, they didn'tdislike the business, but they
were probably a little burntout.

SPEAKER_02 (01:15:28):
Well, yeah, it can it can get that way.
Washing washing wetsuits canburn you out.
Speaking of speaking of that, soyou rent you do wetsuit rentals
or you include them when peoplego snorkeling with the manatees
and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:41):
Yeah, the the springs are always 72 degrees,
22 Celsius.

SPEAKER_02 (01:15:45):
How do you how do you keep people from peeing in
the websuits?
In the wetsuits.
You don't.

SPEAKER_00 (01:15:49):
We wash them in bleach.

SPEAKER_02 (01:15:52):
That's something well, I'm not maybe we shouldn't
have even mentioned that, but Iknow that was a constant, like
yeah, it's it just it's a thing.

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:00):
Yeah, as they say with divers, there are those
that pee in them and those thatlie about it, the same holds for
snorkelers.

SPEAKER_02 (01:16:06):
I and I actually my diving experience, I I just you
know, I got I went through theinstruction process before we
moved to Belize, and and then inBelize I had my own wetsuit, and
after just probably after just afew dives, I told myself, I'm
never gonna rent a wet a wetsuitbecause I know what I do in my
wetsuit.

SPEAKER_00 (01:16:30):
It warms you up if you're cold.
Well in any way it's funnygenerally with ladies, but you
know, it could be anybody.
You know, you'll see them andthey're like shivering, you
know, or you know, they'rethey're getting cold, and all of
a sudden they just like theyrelax.
You can see them and it's like Iknow what you just did.

(01:16:53):
You know Yeah, it is what it is.

SPEAKER_02 (01:16:56):
And the only people that know what we're talking
about right now are people thathave been in a wet.
Everybody else's like, well,that's weird.
You guys are weird.
So anyway, we should we shouldmove on.

SPEAKER_00 (01:17:05):
That was probably obvious early on talking to me,
but which is why I wanted tohave this conversation.

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:10):
So thanks for thanks for bearing with me.
So how long what year was thatthat you actually took the keys
and started working?
2014.
So we're in our 13th year.
So 12, 13 years.
Wow.
Yeah.
All right, very cool.
What is I mean, obviously, youknow, things have changed, but
other than the uh mermaidcourse, what other big changes

(01:17:34):
do we want to touch on before wewrap up?

SPEAKER_00 (01:17:36):
No, that I mean uh you know, with just a variety of
things, you know, we obviouslywe instituted various IT
processes.
I'm sure you know, digitalinventory and reservations, you
know, tourism's evolved a lot in12 years.
I mean, right now I think 80% ofour bookings are online.
You know, five well, pre-COVID,no one wanted to put a credit

(01:17:59):
card in the computer, and nowpeople are more comfortable
typing it in the computer thantelling you the number of
people.
If I don't have to talk toanybody, yeah, that's best.

SPEAKER_01 (01:18:09):
Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:18:10):
And uh, you know, and you know, tourism evolves.
You know, we started doingprivate tours during you know,
coming out of COVID, which forFlorida was like May, June.
You know, it was early in thatprocess.
And we figured, well, that's theway people can go out, they're
outside, they're on the water,they're just with family or
people they know.
So, you know, it kind of limitsexposure, hits some of the

(01:18:31):
checkboxes as far as COVIDprotocols.
And they were wearing they werewearing a mask.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 (01:18:38):
When they were snorkeling.

SPEAKER_00 (01:18:39):
Yeah, except it didn't cover your mouth, but
that's a whole separate issue.
But it I checked with DiversAlert Network on what to do from
a sanitizing gear standpoint,etc.
And uh, we were actually thereanyway, because it was like soak
it in bleach.
Okay, we do that already.
Well, we've been doing thatanyway.
Yeah, so yeah, that no issuesthere.

(01:19:01):
But that's continued to bepopular.
That people they just they likehaving a private experience, so
they've got their captain,they've got their guide, and
they can dictate what they wantto do for that trip.
Well, we want to swim withmanatees.
Well, this manatee's just eatingand sleeping, it's not doing a
whole lot.
Can we go find some others?

(01:19:21):
Or, you know, it's a little bitslow day on the manatee front.
Can we go to a spring and checkout what fish are there?
And there could be tarpon orsnook or sheep's head or
whatever fish in the area.
So, you know, essentially itdoesn't matter to us at that
point.
You know, you know, you signedup for a private manatee tour,
but if you want to go see someother things, we're here, you
have the boat, let's do it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:19:42):
Yeah, and as somebody that has guided a lot
of people, there's there'sbenefits to both.
You know, group tours can begreat booking into group tour,
maybe you save a little bit ofmoney, maybe you want to meet
new people.
Like if you're by yourself,maybe you don't want a private
tour, you want to go with agroup and meet some people.
But the private tours, Iremember, you know, when I was
guiding, it was great because Icould really just get a feel for

(01:20:03):
the people and suggest thingsthat you could never do.
If you had a mix, if you had afamily of five that really just
wanted to swim with manatees,and then you've got a family of
three that are just open for anadventure, all on the same boat,
you were kind of limited.
But if you had that family ofthree that wanted to go have an
adventure, you could do weirdstuff that normally people just
wouldn't do.
You'd say, Hey, I know thisreally cool spot where there's

(01:20:25):
this really big alligatorsnapping turtle or something.
We should go look for it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:28):
I mean, whatever it is, yeah, that's cool.
Well, or you you could swim alittle further, you know, you
could go somewhere because uh weget we get a lot of
non-swimmers.

SPEAKER_02 (01:20:37):
Well, and that's yeah, yeah, that's because
that's another conversation thatcomes up is either if you are
very advanced and you reallywant to just go do some cool
stuff, or if you're a weakswimmer and you know you're a
weak swimmer, maybe you shouldhire a private tour.
Just a thought.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:54):
I could say that.
Maybe you don't want to saythat, but yeah, it's uh every
every guide has had a trip,multiple trips, with like every
day, every trip.
Nah, with three or four peopleholding on to.
I mean, literally where you'vegot you know, dad and daughter
holding on one arm and you know,a mom and son on the other arm,

(01:21:17):
and you are towing four peoplethrough the water.
Yeah, you know, and they comeback and you know, they think
their arms are about eight feetlong because they've been
stretched.
It and uh you know, I've gotpictures and you know the guides
do, and they usually laugh wherethere's a toddler and the
toddler will like climb on theguide's back and ride along, and
the guide will be okay, put yourface in the water, and they'll

(01:21:39):
like lean over and put theirface in the water next to the
guide and you know, check outthe manatee that way.
And mom and dad get to relax alittle bit and enjoy it.
So yeah, they can have their ownexperience, but you know, it's
still safe and controlled.
That's very, very cool.

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:56):
Mike, we've discussed a lot of different
things.
It's been a fascinatingconversation and just a fun
conversation, not justfascinating.
And I'm curious at this point,what do you wish I would have
asked you, or what do you whatdo you think I forgot to ask you
that you want to make sure thatwe discuss before we wrap up?

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:12):
Nothing real explicitly.
I could do a couple of you know,shameless plugs.

SPEAKER_02 (01:22:16):
Come back what you know what?
Well, anybody that's listeningat this point is interested in
what you're doing.
So if there's something you wantto discuss what you're doing,
yeah, please share it.
So it's crystalriverwatersports.com.

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:27):
You know, it's a website.
You know, we've got Facebook,Instagram, TikTok, etc.
So you can follow us on socialmedia.
Uh, we're getting into somescuba trips.
We just returned from Fiji.
We're gonna go and we're gonnago swim with Goliath Gruper in
August and do some wrecks andyou know, looking at doing other
trips.

SPEAKER_02 (01:22:47):
Where's that gonna be?
Is that gonna be in Florida?

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:49):
Yep, Goliath Gruper's is gonna be off of
Jupiter, Florida, uh, southeast.
And then we're gonna do thewrecks.
If they ever get around tosinking the SS United States,
uh, that'll be up in thepanhandle, and we'll do some
other wrecks while we're upthere too.
But it'd be kind of neat to seea ship that was recently sunk,
you know, where it's stillcompletely recognizable without

(01:23:09):
the corals and all the growth,and then be able to go back a
year or two years later and lookat the changes.
Yeah, yeah.
So Mike go to Bonair, could beCayman, Belize, you know, you
know, other dive destinations aswell.
Very cool.

SPEAKER_02 (01:23:25):
So do you have so your website link is gonna be
easy to find in the show notes?
It'll be and I assume thatpeople can connect with your
social media through yourwebsite as well.
Yes, and any trips and promotionstuff you're doing, did they
need to sign up to get thosenotifications, or are they on
the website, or what do yousuggest?

SPEAKER_00 (01:23:45):
They're they're on the website, or you know, if you
pop up us, pop us a message, wecan add you to an email list as
well.

SPEAKER_02 (01:23:52):
Okay.
Very and these trips that you'retalking about, non-diving
companions or non-divers orsnorkelers, are these generally
going to be trips that aresuitable for both types, or are
these hardcore dive trips?

SPEAKER_00 (01:24:05):
The intent is a dive trip, but we had some we had a
couple that went to Fiji thatdidn't dive, and they had a
blast.
They went snorkeling every day,and they saw a black-tipped
shark and octopus and all kindsof stuff while they were out
snorkeling.
Um enough so that they got allthe divers to jump in and go
snorkeling after getting backfrom the boat trip.

(01:24:25):
So yeah, the there's generallyother stuff to do.
It you know, it depends on thelocation and the you know where
we're staying, but you know,there's worse places to spend
some time, you know, Fiji, youknow, Florida Keys, Belize,
Grand Cayman, you know.
So you most people can find someway to entertain themselves.

SPEAKER_02 (01:24:48):
I just want to make sure that anybody listening to
this that's like maybe they'rereally into diving, the wife's
not, or vice versa, and theyheard you say dive trip to Fiji.
I just want to make sure thatyou know that they should
probably still go quick, youknow, go on your website, take a
look.

SPEAKER_00 (01:24:59):
All right.
Well, what I'd say real quick onthat one is we went to Fiji as a
scuba trip, but what I came outof it was an appreciation for
the Fijian people and theculture.
And that's and that's travel ingeneral, which is you know why
you're here.
Yeah, yeah, that's what makesall travel kind of neat.
So, you know, I'm saying scubatrip, but what really set it

(01:25:23):
apart were the people and theother aspects of it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:25:27):
You know, I love that you said I'm so happy you
brought that up because I workedin fly fishing for for many
years, and I think I got to thepoint where I was like, you know
what, it's not about about thefishing.
Maybe some guys would somehardcore fishermen would argue
with me and say, Jason, youobviously don't know what you're
talking about.
But it became it's not about thefishing, but man, fishing for

(01:25:49):
me, especially fly fishing, wasis a really good excuse to go
see some really cool places,meet some really cool people,
and just connect with people.
You know, I led a lot of fishingtrips around the world.
I'd take a group of 10, 12people.
And it was at the end, it wasnever about the fishing.
When we were giving a hug toeach other at the end of the
trip, we were, oh man, thisfish, the fishing was amazing.

(01:26:12):
It was, oh man, look at theconnections we made, look at the
the staff that worked at theselodges and the guides and all
that stuff.
So it really is, and I and I seescuba diving the same way.
Is what a great excuse to go,yeah, okay, maybe you go to
Galapagos to see hammerheadsharks, but there's so much
other stuff you can take awayfrom it.
So thanks, Mike.

(01:26:32):
Yeah, this was fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 (01:26:33):
Yeah, thank you, Jason.
I enjoyed it.
All right.

SPEAKER_02 (01:26:36):
Well, I look forward to meeting you in Florida at
some point and getting a littlecloser to your manatees.
I don't know if that soundsweird, but it could.
All right, Mike, thanks.
We're gonna uh let's stay intouch and look forward to seeing
you soon.
Sounds good, Jason.
Thank you.

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Adventure Travel with Mike Engiles - Crystal River Watersports in Florida

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Adventure Travel with Mike Engiles - Crystal River Watersports in Florida