SWIMMING WITH MANATEES Back from my week in Florida again. Got in an extra day this year because our flight into LaGuardia was called off due to snow. For the second year in a row we arrived to cancelled motel reservations. Fort Lauderdale was empty though, so we went down the road and got better rooms at the Peaceful Dove, for the same price, with WIFI. As usual I was down there with my friend Ernie- the organist music director. It was so cold we both wanted to leave the second day, but didn't bring the subject up until it was too late. The temps hovered in the low 40s at night and it was a windy and cold 55 at the beach during the day. I had to put on all my clothing to go to bed at night. By Saturday it warmed up to 65 and the water was warmer than the air so it was great swimming. After the initial plunge I went swimming everyday no matter how old it was except for the day trip down to the Fairchild Tropical gardens. This Garden has the only tropical rainforest in the continental United States. You could recreate something similar with Palms, Banana Trees, some other trees, Philodendrums and lots of different Begonias. Right now we have a few hundred variegated Begonias in the Greenhouse at St. John the Divine. I figure we cold buy a red Banana tree, a hardy palm tree, several Philodendrms, and use the Colcasia Esculantas, ( Elephant Ears) in my front bathroom and the greenhouse Begonias to create our own little rain forest here in Manhattan. Anyway, since it was not really possible to lie on the beach because of the cold wind, we huddled sitting or walked on the beach when not in the warmish calm water. Monday the sun came out and I was out beyond the surf paddling when there was commotion at the shore. Ernie started yelling to me to come in immediately. Two gray shapes were approaching in the water. They were shapeless and fat without dorsal fins, and had stumpy flippers. They swam towards me, and one had its mouth open in what looked like a sort of a smile. It looked big- a lot larger than me, so I quickly started galloping and swimming toward shore because it was clearly wild and unpredictable. Halfway back one of the other swimmers yelled over "it's OK, they are just Manatees" but I kept going- probably because of their size. I saw the two Manatees again in the water the extra Friday when we were supposed to leave - at roughly the same time, they headed down the beach in the deeper water just beyond he sandbar heading in the same direction.