Let’s be honest. Pretty much everyone has fantasised about being a dolphin trainer … or possibly a mermaid (you can admit it).. lastminute lovely Kirsty got to live the dream.
I had overindulged this fantasy a bit as a child, so the morning I woke up to swim with the dolphins at Seaworld, I was bursting with excitement.
Would the dolphins like me? Would I grab their fins and ride like the wind into the sunset… and free Willy on the way? While my expectations may have been a tad high, it’s fair to say I was hoping for big things.
Things started off well. During our briefing a dolphin, let’s call him Flipper, in the ‘training’ pools (the ones behind the dolphin show at Seaworld) nudged a basketball towards us. Being a Labrador owner, I know this game so I threw the basketball out into the pool and watched in awe as the dolphin swam out retrieved the ball, threw it in the air a few times and brought it back to us.
I don’t know who enjoyed the game more, me or Flipper but I was having a dolphin of a time. Unfortunately, our game of fetch distracted me from the briefing so the ball had to be confiscated. I couldn’t control myself with it there, so it was for the best.
After catching up on the briefing we entered the pool in a group and were introduced to our dolphin Mokie. As we all stood there smiling like kids in a candy shop, the trainers talked us through the different things about dolphins that make them amazing i.e. they are affectionate, playful and talk through their blow hole.
All the while this 230kg of muscle dolphin is patiently swimming in front of us letting us look and touch and turning tricks on command like waving, singing, and jumping two storeys into the air.
Can’t see the video? Click here
One of my favourite parts of the experience was actually watching them when they would go against their orders and nudge the other dolphins in the pool just to be cheeky (or possibly assert some dominance) before they came back into line.
We did get to watch the trainers do some very cool things like be thrown out of the water by their foot and hold onto Moki’s fins and ride around the pool, however this is unfortunately not something the participants get to do.
I did leave wanting a bit more contact, but I guess you can’t have everyone laying all over them and I’m not sure that Moki would appreciate my hugs as much as my Labrador.
If you’ve always wanted to be in the pool with a dolphin, I highly recommend booking it in. Just being close to them was pretty amazing.
Now that this is off my bucket list I’m going to have to put my energy into teeing up a Whale Shark adventure.