Saturday, April 11, 2015 - The Ultimate Dolphin Swim

I got up and had breakfast, then went down to the pharmacy to get some bug spray. I also got a sorrel.  On the way back, someone was blowing at me, and I find I still get confused with this wrong side of the street thing.  I tried to get out of the way, but they pulled up beside me.  It was Mr. Elliot, who had just dropped Bishop and Mrs. Reddick and Rev. Spragin off at the airport.  I would probably have preferred to have ridden with him, but had already made arrangements with Wayne, so I went with him.  By the time I got back to the hotel, Wayne was there (he was a bit later than the 11:00 we had agreed on, but he did call to say he was running late).  We headed off to Negril.  The trip was uneventful; Dolphin Cove is about ¾ of the way from MoBay to Negril.  It’s much smaller than the Dolphin Cove in Ocho Rios, but it seemed much closer. I HAVE to figure out how to get a Jamaican ID card.  My swim was 179; with a Jamaican ID, it would have been 104.  I’mma see…

 

So I go to Dolphin Cove and there’s about half an hour before the next swim.  I got to play with the stingrays and was surprised to see they’d let you take pictures.  Since I’d put all my stuff in a locker, I told the guy I’d come back after my swim. 

Get to the swim and the guy is explaining it.  I’m the only one for the Ultimate Swim, but when they hear what it is, a couple from Houston decided to upgrade from the regular swim to the Ultimate.  I was glad, because I was still skeered to do it.  Silly me. 

In addition to the kisses (I swear, my dolphin, Miguel, the alpha male, was pushing up on me.  He kept giving kisses, and literally started to push up on me!), the petting, the dancing, and the singing, there are two other things in the Ultimate Swim.  The regular swim has you carried belly to belly with one dolphin.  The Ultimate swim has you swimming with two dolphins.  First you are in Superman position, prone with arms outstretched in the water, and they come up behind you, pushing you from the feet, and push you up out of the water.  I was scared, but as soon as I felt their snouts on my feet, it was just  like jumping out of a plane:  AWESOME!!! The other thing they do is that you grab the dorsal fin of each dolphin and they drag you around in a semicircle.

(insert on 4.20.15:  Not sure how I did this and left out the part where I got BITTEN by a stingray!!!  Here is the video:https://youtu.be/Z4xJzc1HImQ

Plane is landing now.  More later.

Pics from the day are here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205342892705643.1073741894.1048146180&type=1&l=55f38390b7

Video is here:
Dolphin Swim
https://youtu.be/SrlbEjHWl5E