Downtown Tampa was a little barren but the beach, at least Clearwater Beach, was an amazing place to be. I had been waiting all summer long for a beach day and it took me until October to get it. The water wasn’t as nice as I expected; it was kind of murky actually and not as “clear water” as its name makes it out to be. But that aside, I was happy to finally get a chance to go out for a swim. I was a little confused why there weren’t a lot of people swimming so I actually asked people on the shore if it was safe to swim. I was told that it was indeed safe. I guess it might have been because the crowd was just a little different on the Tampa Bay beaches. Surprising to me, there weren’t a lot of young people. It was mostly made of families and older couples. Definitely not what you would expect in let’s say Miami. I swam far out from shore and I was still feeling a little nervous so I asked a couple of people that I saw there with me. I had to ask:
“Do sharks swim here?”
“Sometimes, but not that often.”
“Oh.”
“But there are sharks everywhere you swim.”
“Not where I’m from.”
It was especially disconcerting because I was just finishing up the last few days of my period and my tattoo had just finished scabbing up. Terrifying, right? Easy meal for a shark’s deal. Thankfully, I got a good long swim before I started to really freak myself out. When I was on the shore, I googled the keywords “florida” and “shark” on my phone, which funny enough has a case shaped like a shark. The first result was something about Florida being the leading state in shark attacks and the second was about a three-year-old being bitten by shark at the beach. I didn’t think too much of those so I went back out in the water but after some time being there, I swear I felt something large and fleshy press against my leg. Once that happened, I swam like hell and was thoroughly terrified so I just ended my swim time.
Florida in general seems like a really dangerous place to be in. When I was in Busch Gardens, one of the guides asked if I knew what fire ants were.
“Yes… why?”
“Oh, because they’re all over the place here.”
“Oh.”
Luckily, nothing bad came out of that. But black widows, alligators, jellyfish, and yeah, I don’t even know where the crocodiles are yet but my current impression is that they’re all chilling by the river waiting to get me.
I didn’t have any encounters with wild dangerous animals but I saw a lot of these guys on the shore. The ones with the orange beaks kind of look like seagulls with a balding head of hair. You know when a balding guy doesn’t get hair cut for a while? Yeah, that’s kind of what it looked like to me. Turn’s out they’re terns. Royal terns to be exact. Terns remind me of this Whose Line Is It Anways? skit:
Terns also remind me of Colin Mocherie.
After a swim, I went for a beachside run with the setting sun on my side. When I was in a more secluded area, there was a time where I took a rest, looking out into the ocean and, like in a movie, I saw a dolphin jump up and out of the water. IT WAS AMAZING. Actually, on first impression seeing its fin, I thought it was a shark with all the sharks on my mind. I was hoping to see it again but that was it and even though it was a matter of seconds, it was super surreal.
This is where I saw a dolphin! You can see a sandpiper there.
Saw some other creatures along the way like scrambling sandpipers and lizards hopping out of my way. I stopped in time to watch the sun disappear over the horizon, leaving only a wonderous display of pastel skies.
Apart from the beach, there were a couple of cool animal things that I got to do while I was around. The first was to visit the Big Cats Rescue; it’s a sanctuary dedicated to large cats like tigers, lions, cougars but they also house a few smaller cats like bobcats, civets and even house cats. They claim to be the largest accredited sanctuary in the world dedicated to rescuing abused and abandoned big cats. They have a number of different tours and the one I got to go on was the one that is the most up-close and personal, The Keeper Tour. For this tour, the guide basically takes a small group around (we had five people) to visit a few of the cats while they were fed and received enrichment. Enrichment, which is often provided for animals kept in captivity, are things done to keep the cats stimulated so they stay healthy emotionally and mentally. Everyone on the tour got make two kinds of enrichment for the cats. One was rolled up paper bags, filled with either herbs, spices or cat nip. The other was toilet paper tubes and towel paper tubes sprayed with perfume. Apparently cats like that sort of thing. Who knows, but man those cats were spoiled; they got CK’s Obsession and sometimes they’d even get Chanel No. 5.
The tour itself was alright. The guide talked a lot of about the background of each cat like where they came from and she had some fun facts about the species themselves — the typical kind of thing you’d expect from a tour. Although there wasn’t ever a direct interaction with the cats, I got see some pretty exotic species and take a few cool photos. Taking photos was a little tough. The cats spend the majority of their time sleeping and they were fenced pretty far from where we could see them. Even while they were eating, they weren’t very animated. They kind of just paced around until they got their food and then stayed in one spot to eat. I thought it was a little expensive for what it was but in the end, all the money goes back to taking care of the cats so that’s nice. While I just love animals in general, everyone else on the tour seemed to be a crazy-cat-person. All of them mentioned about their cat at home a few times. I wish I had a more of a stable lifestyle to be able to own a cat.
What was way cooler was the Keeper for a Day tour at Busch Gardens. What’s really neat about Busch Gardens is that while it is an amusement park with your typical rollercoasters and thrill rides, it is also one of the largest zoological institutions in the States and offers all sorts of animal encounter experiences. The tour I went on was just one of several different kinds of animal encounters but this particular tour was a very private tour. When I say very private, I mean a one-on-one tour which explains why the price was so steep. But don’t get me wrong, it was definitely worth it and something that I would recommend to anyone travelling in the area. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I got to do a bunch of things that I imagine that I wouldn’t get to do anywhere else. I got to personally feed a bunch of animals and I don’t mean tossing feed. I REALLY fed them; I had food and put it in their mouths. It was crazy. I fed a rhino, a giraffe, a kudu, a tortoise and a flamingo. And that wasn’t all. I got to see a bunch of other animals up close and personally without being fenced away from them. Funny thing: one of the things that they feed the tortoises were sweet potato chunks. I wore my running shoes that day which are a bright neon orange and the guides joked about my shoes looking like giant sweet potatoes which the tortoise, Bubba, was walking towards. Also, got bit by a penguin named Mr. Banks. He just went for my ankle and holy hell it hurt a lot. I still have a scab from it that’s still healing. The guides blamed it on my sweet potato shoes. I just think it’s my cursed right foot. I’ll write about that another time.
While the animal tours were really fun and cool, what I really want to do is see more wild animals. There’s something just way more exciting about catching sight of an animal in its natural habitat. Speaking of which, I’m really behind on my dream of starting on some animal photography. I really need to get on that. But as always, I’ve been distracted with travel which isn’t so bad. Anyways, write soon!