Cruising For Dolphins

Little Squirt and I had a Mommy/Son Date last night. We took a sunset cruise on The Vagabond. It was a gorgeous evening, and we hoped to spot some dolphins. We sailed out of Harbour Town under a tropical moon. I sat back, sipped a glass of white wine and enjoyed the sailing experience as Little Squirt ran about the boat with two tow-headed children.

It was supposed to be a dolphin cruise, and the poor captain did his darndest to stalk the dolphins, bringing us into their usual hanging-out habitats. But the dolphins were shy and snotty and elusive, refusing to show themselves to the sailing tourists. The poor mortified captain apologized, saying that in 20 years he’d never led a dolphin cruise without seeing any dolphins. He was completely baffled. Where the heck were they? That led my imagination to wander.....I thought about the movie, "Jaws" and half expected a ginormous thud on the bottom of the boat. Maybe a Great White with a taste for blood was lurking in the waters! “Dun dun. Dun dun.........”

But as we sailed toward a shrimp boat, the captain spotted an Atlantic bottlenose dolphin and her doe. He moved our boat closer to the shrimp boat so we, the faithful tourists that had paid money to see a dolphin, could catch a glimpse of an actual dolphin. And that’s what we got. Just a glimpse, and a big snoot-full of salty sea spray.

Little Squirt was disappointed. He wanted to know why the dolphins didn’t swim up to the boat, sit up on their tails and wave and say hello. I explained that this wasn’t Seaworld, that real dolphins in the ocean don’t behave like that.

“Then we should catch them, train them to do tricks in a pool, and bring them back to the ocean. Then when people are on a dolphin cruise, they would get to see a show!” he reasoned. Hmmm. My child had a good point. A possible future business venture for me, enabling us to permanently live in this Paradise? I'll noodle on it!

The captain apologized at the end of the 2 hour cruise, saying that they’d give us each a voucher for a free cruise this week, since the dolphin sighting was so lame. My precocious 8yo raised his hand and loudly asked the captain, “Since we’ll get a free cruise, could we get free snacks and drinks, too??” Hmmm. Another good point. A free glass of pinot grigio would almost make another lame dolphin cruise worth it.