Bucket Listing

I don't really have a bucket list but if I did there would be a few things on it. One of those off-the-wall wishes like swimming with the dolpins. I just think it would be very cool and it was! David took me to Discovery Cove in Orlando where we were celebrating our 35th wedding anniversary with family. I love dolphins. I think they are so intelligent, mysterious and beautiful. I never expected to swim with them. Our session wasn't until the afternoon so we spent the day there swimming around and wading with the sting rays. When it was time, we were coached about the do's and don't's of interacting with the dolphins - not surprisingly they don't like you to touch their face (it's like walking up to someone you just met and touching their face). Use the blow hole as the line drawn for touching forward. They like long gentle strokes and tummy rubs. Best of all even trained dolpins do not do anything they don't want to - so if they don't feel like participating (everyone has a bad day), they just won't and are allowed to go back to the private lagoon. It's nice to know they have a choice. Also if they don't like the way you are interacting with them, they will shun you. Smart dolphins.

We first met Luna, a two-year-old born at Discovery Cove, who still has a lot of growing up to do. She was just like a puppy swimming all over the place and enjoying the attention. They are very careful to make sure she is out of the road when the adults swim into the meet-and-greet lagoon. There is a hierarchy among dolphins and the young are kept in their place.

Our dolphin was Cindy, the oldest at Discovery Cove. Normally they live to be about 25 in the wild but because these dolphins receive the best diet and medical care, she is over 40 and doesn't look a day over dolphin middle age! She was amazing. Her skin is smooth and silky but also spongy and sort of leathery to the touch. She flipped over and showed us her white belly and enjoyed some gentle pats and rubs. We each had our picture taken with her and she actually poses by raising her head and tail out of the water and grinning a wide dolphin smile.

We got to feed her fish and she would slap her tail to say thank you. Then we each swam out to the middle of the lagoon with a trainer and Cindy swam up beside us. I took hold of her dorsel fin with one hand and her side fin with the other and with a signal she was off. It was like waterskiing. The power lifted me out of the water until she levelled off and it was amazing to be pulled into shore with her. An absolutely amazing experience. At the end of the session, the trainers send the dolphins out into the middle of the lagoon a few meters from us and they all leap into the air together about three or four times. What a finale!

Strike one for the bucket list - a very BIG one! Thank you David!