Awesome footage of a large group of manatees circling a canoeist off the coast of Florida, USA.

In order to get better images of the manatees the canoeist later gets off his boat and lets the marine mammals approach him.

"As the tide came in, and the very shallow  water I was standing in got deeper,  I found myself surrounded by manatees," he wrote online.

"Although it is illegal to touch or swim with manatees in most of Florida, I was not swimming with them, and I did not touch them, although a few of them nibbled on my legs," he added.