Swimming with manatees

The manatee

The manatees are family of mermaids, marine mammals that are nearly extinguished. The name of the siren has to do with the legend of the sirens, they say, were beautiful women with  fishtail who lived in the sea. These mammals are gentle animals, which have not developed any defenses and never attack humans or other animals.

Riding on the back of a manatee. - (* Expand the photo with a click.

Bavaro, Dominican Republic.- Yaroslaw Mazur, a Polish photographer and experienced diver got the fright of his life when he was diving on the reefs near the coast, while enjoying the wonderful seascape, encountered a herd of strange animals he knew only in books, videos and documentaries: They were Manatees.

“Oh my God! It Was So exciting, I will never forget That day, That Was something amazing.”

Recreate the encounter with manatees has changed the life of this professional photographer. Mazur lives in New York, but since he watched the aquatic mammals has returned 19 times to Bavaro. He is responsible for water and awesome video footage of tourists interacting with these animals.

Mazur manages the company “Global Divers”, associated with Walter Frischbutter and his company responsible for underwater tours. The German businessman has a diving school and works with seven local resorts. Frischbutter speaks five languages.

Walter, who observed manatees for the first time in 2007, does not hide the excitement when talking about this:

“Swimming with manatees is one of the main aquatic activities that attract tourists in Bavaro. They touch these mammals with their hands, swim and play with them. Have fun under the water like children, without any malice. Tourists will scratch their belly and they fall asleep. That’s worth seeing. It is an experience that no human being can forget.“

Swimming with manatees. - (* Expand the photo with a click.

The diving area is called “Butane” and is located 5 minutes from the Bavaro beach coast. There are corals, caves and grass eaten by manatees. Tourists are transported in three separate boats. If you do not have a diving license, before activity you receive a special training. The entire process is supervised by professional divers. The maximum depth where the manatees are found is twenty feet. The visit of the Mammals in this part of the coast usually occur twice a year and they stay several weeks in the area.

Walter Brandle, tourism entrepreneur, believes that the presence of manatees that interact with tourists “is the best thing what happen to Bavaro. I think we are entering a new stage of sustainable tourism in the Punta Cana/Bavaro area. We never had seen anything like that. It is simply great, exciting, an indescribable look of innocence of these mammals playing with humans in an atmosphere of harmony and cordiality. These are things that you cannot see every day.“

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>>>>> read the original story (spanish): Nadando con Manatíes

Mermaid, Siren or Manatee?

In the ocean near Hispaniola in 1493, Christopher Columbus—probably glimpsing a manatee—reported seeing three mermaids but said they were “not as pretty as they are depicted, for somehow in the face they look like men.“

The mermaid La sirèn is a powerful water spirit popular in the Caribbean Islands and parts of the Americas. Like European mermaids, and the African mermaid water spirit Mami Wata, La sirèn holds a mirror to admire herself and a comb for her long, straight hair. La sirèn’s underwater world is known as “the back of the mirror,” and her mirror is a symbol of the boundary between the two worlds. Followers of La sirèn say she takes them below the water to her world, and they return with new powers. Some women become Vodou priestesses this way.

The story of La sirèn blends African and European mermaid stories with Caribbean culture. When African slaves were brought to the Caribbean, they took their stories with them. In Haiti, La sirèn is part of the Vodou tradition, and her followers appeal to her for help in Vodou ceremonies, where the mermaid’s spirit may enter the body of a female follower and bring good luck with work, health, money and love.

The mermaid La sirèn is one of three powerful female water spirits, sometimes considered sisters, who are honored in shrines like the one pictured here. One sister is cool, calm and seductive. The other is hot, passionate, angry and strong. La sirèn’s personality is a blend of these opposites. Together, they validate a wide range of temperaments for women.

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a day trip to paradise

a cozy day-trip by catamaran to enjoy paradise:

Miches – Media Luna – Cayo Levantado – Miches

From Miches we depart with the “motor-catamaran Sonia“, after one hour we make the first stop in “Media Luna“, a sand shoal in the middle of the Bay of Samana. Its low tide and we can leave the catamaran to take a drink and prepare a quick breakfast picnic on the small sandy island. A large coral reef surrounding the sandbank. Some of us take the snorkeling equipment for to explore the colorful underwater world. After some more Margaritas we took off in direction Cayo Levantado, the Bacardi dream island.

Here await us a dream beach and a fine lunch in the beach restaurant. The sand there is so white and the turquoise waters crystal clear, its excellent for swimming and snorkeling. After lunch we have some time to swim or relax on the beach. Known for its fantastic beach where the bacardi commercial was filmed, this small island in the Samana Bay is the stuff of legends, apparently linked to bounty hunters and treasure.

Dolphins in the bay of Samana

As conclusion, on the way back to Miches more than 15 minutes we were accompanied by a group of jumping dolphins. Today we learned that paradise is reality, we found it in the bay of Samana …….

Thanks to the staff of “Rancho La Cueva” for this unforgettable day in the Dominican east coast!

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too sweet for to be true

Paradise as nightmare

Once humans lived in the garden of Eden, but expelled for ambitious they lost their paradise.

The big dream is to return again, ….

It is impossible to achieve any happiness,  if the other side of it is not known, which is the sadness or grief. – For to get happy first you had to become sad!

Happiness is only apparent, like an idea of perfection to which humanity aspires for to realize their destiny of life. But in exchange, for to pursue happiness we will loose many other goals beneficial to mankind because Happiness is the final destiny with no more choice for to select something different.  It must be eradicated our ability to think and to illustrate, to increase the options for art, history,  science, religious liberties, multicultural abilities, philosophy and in general all intellectual creativity. Everything must be reduced to simple emotional states which are easy and effective to control. But this inability to develop the intellect and the inability to show emotions such as sadness, worry or pleasure, make that actually happiness is an impossible illusion which is only possible loosing the option to choose and forgetting freedom.

Its nice to dream about paradise, but we only can try to establish happiness if we are surrounded by sadness!

From far away it looks like the paradise, until you arrive it will be different! Before you start to realize a dream you had to find a new dream, because the worst is living a life without a dream ….

two visionary books talking about paradise and happiness

Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

When the novel Brave New World first appeared in 1932, its shocking analysis of a scientific dictatorship seemed a projection into the remote future. Here, in one of the most important and fascinating books of his career, Aldous Huxley uses his tremendous knowledge of human relations to compare the modern-day world with his prophetic fantasy. He scrutinizes threats to humanity, such as overpopulation, propaganda, and chemical persuasion, and explains why we have found it virtually impossible to avoid them.

1984, by George Orwell

In George Orwells 1984, the world has been divided into three great super-states — Eastasia, Eurasia, and Oceania. Eurasia followed upon ”the absorption of Europe by Russia,” and Oceania, ”of the British Empire by the United States.” England is known as Airstrip One, and London is its capital. The English language is being transformed into something called Newspeak, a devastating bureaucratic jargon whose aim is to reduce the vocabulary to the minimum number of words so that ultimately there will be no tools for thinking outside the concepts provided by the state.

Oceania is controlled by the Inner Party. The Party itself comprises 25 per cent of the population, and only the select members of the Inner Party do not live in total slavery. The bulk of the population is composed of the ”proles,” a depraved mass encouraged in a gross, inexpensive debauchery. For Party members, sexual love, like all love, is a crime, and female chastity has been institutionalized in the Anti-Sex League.

Party members cannot escape official opinion or official observation, for every room is equipped with a telescreen that cannot be shut off; it not only broadcasts at all hours, but it also registers precisely with the Thought Police every image and voice; it also controls all the activities that keep the private life public, such as morning callisthenics beside one’s bed. It is the perpetually open eye and mouth.

The dictator, who may or may not be alive but whose poster picture looks down from almost every open space, is known as B. B., or Big Brother, and the political form is called Ingsoc, the Newspeak equivalent of English socialism.

Final Fantasy – the antics of an aging Casanova.

… to have a dream, is not the same like to live a dream!