Hawaii: Dolphins

You may not know this about me, but ever since I went to Sea World in San Diego at the age of 6, I've been absolutely obsessed with whales and dolphins. And I don't use the word obsessed lightly here to mean, "I kind of like them." I mean really and truly and yes, literally, obsessed. I wrote letters to Sea World asking them how to be a trainer and they dutifully sent packets of information about whales back to me. I read every book in the school library about whales. I kept notebooks of newspaper clippings involving whales (remember the three grey whales trapped in the ice? yeah, so do I). And I probably collected over a hundred different whale figurines made out of glass, wax, ceramic, and even ash from Mt. St. Helens.

And even knowing all this, when Craig helped me go through boxes of my things from home, he was still surprised at how much whale paraphernalia I'd managed to collect as a kid. Or how, when he reads books about whales to the kids, I already know all the information in them. (Like how tall a male killer whale's dorsal fin is? 6 feet. Which is pretty huge, if you think about it!)

Anyway. All this is just to give you some idea of how excited I was to swim with dolphins in Hawaii! I actually got to do it twice-- the whole group (minus the babies) got to go at Sea Life Park, and that was pretty cool. But you weren't allowed near the area with a camera, so the pictures my mother-in-law snapped of it are from very far away. (We did buy the ones they sold us, so I'll try to scan those for you later-- they turned out great but I'm not sure if our scanner can do them justice!) And then Jeni and I went again at a hotel where they had a program called Dolphin Quest. And while it was a bit pricey, it was far and away my favorite thing that we did in Hawaii.

BECAUSE IT WAS THE COOLEST THING EVER.

I had a grin plastered across my face the entire hour. The only problem with it was that it set me back to wondering and scheming how I can ever be a whale trainer... Maybe once all the kids are in school and we move to Hawaii... Yeah... That might work.

Anyway, here are my favorite pictures.  If you want to see the rest of them, just say the word the next time you're at my house.  I'll have them out for you to see before you can even blink!

We actually got to be in the water swimming around with the various dolphins.  Here I am tossing a fish into Lono's mouth

I was doing my best to swim decently.  I think that dolphin barely flicked his tail to keep up with me!

I like how Jeni and I are on either side of the dolphin in this shot-- nice camera work, Mr. Photographer!

Jeni and Liko get to be good friends

One squid, down the hatch!

Craig was totally okay with this.  Really!

At least, I think he was.

I'm pretty sure at this point I was actually cooing, "Who's my good boy?  You're my good boy!"  What a dork!

I really like this picture of Jeni!

Giving some tummy rubs to Nai Noa

Like I said, a bit pricey.  But oh, so worth it.  This really was a dream come true for me.