Today was a day off from diving and our much anticipated swim with the dolphins.
at Dolphin Discovery
We didn’t have a get up early so it was a nice chance to sleep in and enjoy the breakfast buffet. We took a taxi to Chankanaab park and waited for our dolphin adventure – the Royal Swim!! We were in a group with 4 others – a family of 3 generations – mom, daughter, son, and grandma. I was chosen to go first for a dolphin hug and the dorsal tow where 2 dolphins pull me along which I hold onto their dorsal fins. It was amazing!! I was really impressed by how powerful and fast they were. Everything else was great too – the kiss, the handshake, etc, but the best part of all was the foot push!! That’s where you lie in the water on your belly with arms and legs outstretched. The dolphins come and put their noses to your feet and literally propel you out of the water. It was so awesome. You feel like your flying and my whole body was propelled out of the water. It was great. There was a professional photographer with us and of course we bought the CD of pictures of our adventure (photos to follow when I get access to a CD drive…definitely worth waiting for).
After the dolphin adventure, we had a complimentary manatee experience with 3 manatees. I was very bad and kept sneaking away to secretly play with the manatees. It was great. They are big and dumb looking with elephant skin on their backs covered with algae and nails on their fins like elephant feet but soft underbellies and a super pudgy snout with funny whiskers. I wish I had pictures of the manatees. They also have a big back fin that’s wide and mermaid-like (but nothing else about them is particularly mermaid-like. I also secretly snuck on one and tried to ride it. (hee hee) We were able to feed them lettuce, cool!! I would definitely buy a full time manatee adventure in the future, and do that dolphin trainer thing that’s available at the mainland location.
We also saw an excellent sea lion show with 3 different sea lions that were very well trained.
The rest of the day was spent lounging about the resort which was super relaxing and pleasant.
My friend had spent her first day at a scuba refresher course which had a professional underwater photographer staffed. I was able to see her pix which were amazing. Taken with a Nikon D20 and wide lense with red filter – really makes me want to upgrade my equipment and/or consider a career in underwater photography – how perfect would that be!!
Off to dinner now…
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