Swimming with Dolphins!

My answer to the popular question "What animal would you be?" has always been a dolphin. They get to swim around all day, are very smart, and who doesn't love dolphins? I think that would be the life. So, when we saw that swimming with dolphins was something we could do in Mexico, there was no hesitation. This was easily our favorite activity of the whole trip.

The place that we did it through was called Dolphin Discovery. They had a few different aquariums, but the one that we were in head 9 dolphins in it. There were multiple trainers and vets in the aquarium.  We learned that all the dolphins were either rescued or born there. Our particular trainer was working with 2 dolphins. Because it was the off season, we were the only ones in our group which worked out wonderfully for us. 

The first pass the dolphin made was just to say hi. This first dolphin we worked with was a 32 year old female that was rescued. Interesting side note: dolphins can live to be about 50 years old under human care.

The next time, we got to touch the dolphin for the first time. Despite the look on my face, I was really enjoying myself.

Then we got to hug the dolphin. Basically, we put our arms out like we were carrying a stack of wood and the dolphin swam right into our open arms. It was way cool.

Hunter seems to be far more photogenic than I am. haha.

Then we put our arms straight out and the dolphin swam up, put it's nose on our hand and swam around in a circle so we were spinning like clocks. Also way cool.

Again with a basic touch, keep the dolphin feeling safe and comfortable.

Then the dolphin got to show off a little bit more. This is where the second dolphin started participating as well. He was a 3 year old that was born there.

The dolphin kiss. We put our hands out in a cupping position and the dolphin swam right up and put it's head in our hands.

It is amazing to me how calm and well trained they were. Again, dolphins are super smart.

The handshake - only dolphins are cooler than humans and shake both hands at once.

And the ball. These pictures only show them touching their noses to it. What it doesn't show is that they know how to play basketball. There was a little hoop on the edge of the aquarium that they would bounce the ball into.

With very simple hand motions they knew exactly what they were supposed to do. 

This is where it starts to get so much more exciting! The trainer had us float in the water with our arms straight out then he sent the dolphins to us and they swam up, one on either side, and we grabbed their dorsal fins and they swam back to the trainer with us holding on.

One dolphin was a lot stronger than the other and, consequently, was able to swim a lot faster.

After that, he had us lay superman style, with our feet out behind us, and sent the dolphins again. This time they put their noses on our feet and swam back. The faster they went, the more out of the water we got. 

When it was Hunter's turn I was waiting with the trainer and the dolphins on the other side of the aquarium. It took the trainer several times to get both dolphins to swim to Hunter at the same time. He said this was because of dominance issues. The older and more dominant one, would tell the other one what to do and that often resulted in him swimming back to the trainer long before he ever got close to Hunter.

Because we were the only two in our group we got to experience most of these activities multiple times. As I said earlier, this was easily our favorite activity of the whole trip. It was such a cool experience. Water, dolphins, fascinating facts, and fun swimming activities? It doesn't get much better than that.