I know what I did this summer - 2007 Pt 3

Flipper

James Duthie

9/26/2007 7:23:51 PM

James Duthie is back for another season. But before he begins his regular sports commentary, this week he'll offer up his 4th annual summer vacation diary.

Part 3: Flipping over Flipper

When I was 15, I made a shortlist of the things I most wanted to do in life.  

Just to be clear, completing the human DNA map and mastering quantum physics weren't exactly on my radar.   (Unlike now, when both are well within reach.)

My list was pure teenage, shallow, Mountain Dew commercial material.

1.  Walk on fire
2.  Date cheerleader with orange paw painted on face (I'd watched too many Clemson football games)
3.  Swim with Dolphins

I did the firewalk when I was 25.  It was empowering.  Life-changing.  

Until about two hours later when I felt hotter than Ghost Rider and went to the hospital begging them to cut off my feet and end the agony.    

The cheerleader thing never happened.  Though my wife now complies occasionally.  You know…Saturday nights in the suburbs.

As for the Dolphin swim, it took a quarter-century, but it finally got scratched off the list this summer during our vacation in the Bahamas.

I know.  Swimming with dolphins isn't exactly a wild exotic adventure anymore.  There will likely be a dolphin tank in the outdoor section of Wal-Mart before the decade is out.

But this was different.

"Dolphin Encounters" is on Blue Lagoon Island, a tiny oasis off Nassau.   (Not to be confused with the Blue Lagoon where Brooke Shields got naked and rocked my adolescent world in 1980).  

The Dolphins here get to swim in actual ocean, instead of some theme park pool.  The island also has extensive dolphin education programs for local schools and underprivileged kids, a non-profit ocean conservation program, and a natural home for six sea lions rescued from a Mississippi marine park after Hurricane Katrina. 

(Sea lion aside:  Of the six, there is only one male.  His name is Murray, and he mates with all of the females.   Murray is the Sean Kemp of sea lions.  Wait, that reference is outdated.   Murray is the Tom Brady of sea lions.)

Blue Lagoon has 19 Atlantic Bottlenose dolphins, including Fatman, Jake, and McGyver, who all played Flipper in the 1996 movie starring Paul Hogan and Elijah Wood.

The previous sentence raises several perplexing questions. 

1. Are all dolphins here named after lame 80's TV shows?  Is there a there dolphin named Alf? Manimal?  T.J Hooker?

2. When three dolphins share one leading role, do they each get their own trailer on the set?  

3. Paul Hogan was in a movie not called Crocodile Dundee?

Our family didn't meet the movie star dolphins.  Our entertainers were a couple of flirty females named Soca and Chippy.  Chippy is 31, one of the older dolphins on the island.   I was so proud when my son got to kiss her.  You never forget your first cougar. 

We spent nearly an hour in the ocean with the pair and their trainers; touching them (the dolphins, not the trainers), dancing with them, and watching them do ridiculous water gymnastics.

There is a move I'm sure you've seen called the "stationary tailwalk" where they propel themselves almost completely out of the water and balance there for several seconds.  It is remarkable.  

I hadn't seen a dolphin stay high that long since Ricky Williams.

(I know…that was too easy).

Spend a little time with these creatures and it is easy to see why they are the most beloved mammals on the planet, next to Maxim models.   They are incredibly gentle, as soft and smooth as Pierre McGuire's head, and their mouth is shaped in that perma-mischievous grin, as if they're thinking:  "Human dude, you look hilarious in that bathing suit."

I always judge a family trip by the number of times you here "Whoa!" and  "Cool!" from your kids.   This was off the charts.  (Except for my three year-old daughter, who stayed well back, wearing a look that said:  "You dolphins seem sweet, but until I get older and my brain develops, I will continue to believe that you are going to eat me.")

The closing act of this, and I'm guessing most dolphin encounters is the "foot-push", where the two dolphins stick their noses under your feet and push you out of the water for one wild 60 foot ride. 

You end up in a full Kate Winslet Titanic pose.   I actually yelled  "Don't let go Jack!"  But nobody got it.

The experience was...well…Whoa! Cool!

For 10 wild seconds, I felt like the top of a bizarre dolphin-human cheerleader pyramid.

Maybe I should have painted the paw on my face.

Next Up:  Duthie's dream twosome (No, it's not Kournikova again)