posted on Mar, 2 2009 @ 10:45 PM
I made the mistake of swimming with dolphins down in Mexico, once. This was something I had always wanted to do and being a pretty good swimmer and
half polluted from the night before, I decided to fork over $200 to impress my then girlfriend (now wife).
Swimming with dolphins had always looked like fun. You know being pulled around by two amazing ("Grey's" according to another thread here tonight)
dolphins was going to be cool. Not taking the instruction of the trainers too seriously I opted not to put on the PFD so I could literally swim with
the dolphins as I had always imagined it. Well the others in my group consisted of a husband and a wife with their infant and hung chung me.
Needless to say they, the nice little family, followed the instructions of the trainers got some quality time with the dolphins, I was another
story.
So to start things off the trainer told us to get in to the water and let the dolphins come up to us. Me being the aquaman I thought I was dove in
and gave it my best dolphin kicks down to about 10 ft. The salinity of the water wasn't that high and I could open my eyes as I floated to the
surface. Out of nowhere this dolphin does a flyby that leaves me spinning in its wake and heading up fast. I make it up and too the edge of the pool
where I catch my breath and quietly and humbly await further instruction. It kinda freaked me out at the power I had just witnessed.
The nice little family enjoyed the company of two dolphins for like 15minutes feeding, petting, interacting while I sat on the sidelines feeling like
I was in trouble with the dolphins. Serves me right for trying to invade their space by arrogantly swimming in their territory without invitation so
to speak.
Patiently I waited my turn as the trainers brought the reluctant dolphins over for a little time with me. The first trick we tried was the foot push.
Thats the only way I can describe it. I swam out to the middle btw I've got a PFD on now while the dolphins came up behind me and pushed on my feet
as I tried to stay as straight as possible. This dolphin literally tried to push me out of the pool. This fish had me heading for the wall at a
pretty good click, I had to bail out to keep from hitting the wall.
As if that wasn't enough the next trick had me holding my arms out so I could hang on to the dorsal fins and take a lap around the pool. Thats when
I got to see up close and personal the insides of a dolphins mouth as all I could see was teeth from this dolphin taking a swipe at me. Needless to
say I was done with this fun and my wife was crying because she was laughing so hard at me.
I learned a couple of valuable lessons that day.
1. Follow instructions
2. Be Humble
3. Dolphins don't like tequilla
My opinion of the video is that these smaller dophins were invading in on the space of the Bottle nose dolphins while they were enjoying the company
of those on the boats, or even the boat itself as they rode the bow wake.