Friday, January 15, 2010

Nose to Bottlenose...

Today was an exciting day. Sure, it was an overnight over a couple hundred miles at sea. And sure, we transited a lock and had our first glimpse of Florida-sized pelicans. But today, our team came literally face to face with dolphins. Lots of dolphins.

To be fair, I was prepared for this. The stretch from Cape Canaveral through Vero Beach is teeming with bottlenose dolphins. They are everywhere. Early on, I got the team prepared and put them on dolphin watch in the rear cockpit.


Now THAT is a team - alert and ready. Each dog has their own step stool to stand on for a better view over the caprail. The objective is to give them enough view without giving too much height. We want them to stay in the boat. Given the chance, they'll leap. Trust me, they've tried.

It didn't take long. We had about 8 different groups swim, squeak, and slap the water all around the boat. Our team never knew that such things existed. The dolphins took turns jumping out of the water to Dyna's barks and Dylan's howls. They have learned the word "dolphin" because when I say it now, they run to the back and stand on their stools.

We'll make other postings about our overnight in the next couple of days. For now, the total joy was watching our crew experiencing nature at it's best.







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