A cool video has emerged of a close encounter between a canoeist and a group of manatees in St Petersburg, Florida.

The footage, filmed on December 16, shows the four manatees swimming beside and underneath the See-Through Canoe.

"After spending some time with the manatees, I decided to get back underway to my destination. When I tried to back out of the area, away from the manatees, one of the manatees followed me for quite a while," the filmer later wrote online.