Celebrity Dolphins

Flipper, and friend.

We see dolphins every day.  They are simply delightful, and we love seeing them. There is a pod of dolphins that seems to like to hang out near where we are anchored, and in fact we have come to be able to identify some of the members.  For example, there’s one we call “Crooked Fin”, whom we assume is the mom of “The Baby One”. 

Crooked Fin.

And there are many others.  They come and go in groups of 3 or maybe 5, and then sometimes we see a lone wolf flying solo.  Recently one of these singletons swam by and leapt straight up at least 10 feet in the air, and then disappeared. What a sight.

We are not alone in our love fest for the bottle-nosed ones.  

In fact, almost every day dolphin-watching charter boats hover just about 100 yards from us, hoping for a chance to glimpse these creatures.    And most days, the tourists get their chance, and we can hear the squeals of pleasure and see the pops of cameras flashing.  

But, I must admit....we have started to take the pelagics a little bit for granted.  One of us may notice that there are dolphins about, and sound the call: “Dolphins!”.  It used to be that this brought one and all running to watch the spectacle.  But lately I’ve noticed that we are all a bit slower to hop-to.  “Yah, yah, another dolphin.....zzzzzzzzzz.   I’m in the middle of a good passage here in my book...”  Sad.  But true.  We’ve become jaded dolphin watchers.

I’ve heard that dolphins might be telepathic.  Or magical.  Or maybe they are just incredibly full of their celebrity selves, craving the papparrazi love much like a Kardashian.  They must have some super-natural powers because somehow they apparently noticed that we were losing interest, and as a result figured they needed to pull out all the stops (a kind of dolphin wardrobe malfunction, perhaps?) to pull us back into their world.  And so they showed up at our boaty doorstep and literally swam circle around us.  They swam upside down along our rail and showed their bellies.  They giggled with each other and eyed us as we squealed at their antics.   

They played beside us long enough for us to get out the cameras and snap away.  And we will all come running quickly the next time, hoping for the same kind of personal attention.  Did they know that their photos would end up here on the blog for the world (or at least a few of our friends) to see? Maybe they did.  No doubt they are hoping we just spell their names right.  

Can I have a belly rub?

Our dolphin infested waters.

Showing off, right off our port side.

Fin.