Beyond the Peace Corps and Through the Looking Glass: Equal Time for Dolphins

Although I swam with the Whale Sharks, still fondly in my heart, and more identified with (perhaps I was longest in the dolphin stage on my evolutionary path - or just had the most fun there?) is the dolphin. Another of my top 10 was my 40th birthday when we were in the Florida Keys and Dave scrambled to give me a birthday present (which I assumed when reading of the sites in the Keys that he was going to surprise me with on my birthday...wrong...but he did pull it off, as usual) - one of my best presents: swimming with dolphins at a private facility in the ocean. Gave me such an appreciation for these beautiful and intelligent creatures. Ashley was about 3 years old then, and started crying onshore - one of the female dolphins came over to me and gave me a shove with her (incredibly muscular and strong) body, as if to say, "Get out of the pool and take care of your baby!" (which everyone did on orders of the instructor). What an experience!!

Since then, I've swum with spinner dolphin at Kealakekua Bay on the Big Island of Hawaii, and wanted more interaction - but those awful tourist pools with dolphins trapped in them - "Swim With the Dolphins for only $200 if your lottery ticket is picked" really disturb me.

So, when Rich White-Smith - here with the Peace Corps for 6 months as a PCResponse volunteer - said that he had arranged for 7 of us to go on a Dolphin Watching Tour - did I jump (even before he said that it was his treat!!).

Matthew and Krystal Klebes - my kids here in Puerto

Petra - my daughter in Aborlan

Petra came from Aborlan and slept over - we were up at 5:30am and on a trike to the Baybay at 6am, arriving finally at the dolphin boats and meeting Matt and Krystal there. Rich, thoughtful as usual, had brought coffee and doughnuts for us and we departed promptly - going way out in the ocean. Supposedly, the dolphins come in to shore and feed early in the morning.
We were going to meet them after breakfast and before lunch to watch them play.

We motored out again past the decrepit WWII
vintage Philippine navy ships - now you know
why the US offered to help with the Spratley
Islands.

Some of the best fun happened on the way out - watching the amazing flying fish take off and glide for such long distances. Here's a short video I found that shows up close what they look like - pretty incredible - they really do fly!

We got farther and farther out and all of a sudden, an enormous pod (40-60) dolphins raced by - guess that's why "swimming with dolphin" trips aren't offered - rather disappointing to the tourists to have them vanish within a minute or two - incredibly fast.

Reminded me of the first race I saw Ashley row in college on the Schuylkill in Philly - I was so excited and had gotten up really early to bus down with parents to watch their kids race in an Easter race in the freezing cold weather (I can only imagine Ashley's butt on the board of the boat). I got my camera out and the parents said, "Quick -come here - here they come!"....but I couldn't even identify her in the skull because they zipped by so fast!
At least I didn't need to identify any particular dolphin in this case, so I wasn't upset, and my camera was out.

We saw so many dolphins that day!! They came right up to the bow of the boat and swam alongside; the water so clear that you could see them dive down 40 feet before they disappeared from view.