Tovin Lapan
Dolphins can be trained to give kisses, and much like dogs they enjoy belly rubs and verbal encouragement. Just don't try to scratch them behind the ears.
Tovin Lapan
Our trainer, Julie, gives LB and Ding a well deserved snack. During season there's little time to train the dolphins, and minor training is done during visitor swims.
Tovin Lapan
Childhood fantasies of being a marine biologist reawakened, I watch the rest of our group play with LB and Ding at Dolphin Plus in Key Largo.
“Just pucker up,” Robin shouts to me from the dock. “Keep your hands by your sides and stay still.”
He pops up out of the water a few feet away and cautiously swims forward, his mouth pointed up towards the sky and away from the salty surface. Suddenly it looks huge, giant dripping jaws and gray lips splotched with white like countries claiming land on a black and white map. I can smell the ocean as he approaches – a damp salty, fishy scent that seems to escape from his throat and head relentlessly in my direction.
I feel foolish, floating with my lips pursed in a Key Largo Canal as the sun melts toward the horizon. I consider giving up on the kiss and letting my cheeks relax, but then LB leans in slowly and ever so gently touches his stiff wet lips to mine, holding them there in a salty frozen kiss. We hold it for what feels like a very long time.
“He likes you,” Robin yells again, before blowing a screeching call on the whistle hung around her neck. In a single fluid motion the dolphin slips beneath the water and swims away. I’ve just made out with a 600-pound aquatic mammal. Ha!
*******
My dolphin romance began nearly 20 years earlier in the basement library of the John Ward Elementary School in Newton, Massachusetts. While rummaging through Cam Jansen chapter books and other grade school favorites, I stumbled on something far more exciting: a colorful work of non-fiction that told the story of a dolphin research facility on Grassy Key, Florida.
A brief obsession kicked off. I brought the book home and scribbled a letter to the facility’s owners. I paged through brochures advertising dolphin swims, dolphin observations, dolphin classes and dolphin-themed gift shops. I hung a dolphin poster on my closet door. I begged, pleaded and asked very, very nicely if I could go play with the dolphins in Florida. Then eventually, like most childhood fixations, it just faded away.
But here I am, three days after my 24th birthday, strapped into a life vest and getting ready to slide into the cold December water at Dolphin Plus to join LB, Ding and their four-month old baby in the watery enclosure they call home.
An hour’s worth of pre-swim information sprints around my head. Dolphins talk through their blow holes. They can tell if you’re pregnant with their sonar. They have belly buttons! No, they aren’t monogamous, and yes, they sometimes bite.
Robin, our group’s trainer, directs a friend and me into the water to begin our structured swim. We each stretch out an arm and LB and Ding swim by us, arching into our hands. My palm glides along their soft, smooth skin, and I let loose a giggle of delight. The dolphins’ muscular bodies cut through the ocean, flashes of gray that seem to emerge out of nowhere under my fingers, then disappear again into the murky waters.
Robin pulls on the whistle, calling the dolphins back to the dock where all three gather at her feet, mouths agape for treats of herring and other fish served out of deep metal buckets. She talks to the dolphins in a sweet, high-pitched voice, coddling and cajoling them the way one would a toddler or a puppy. Looking up at her with wide, dark eyes, they remind me of giant slate-colored children.
A few minutes later Robin points me to the far end of the dolphin’s pen. My heartbeat quickens in anticipation as I float there, arms outstretched waiting for LB and Ding to break the surface behind me. What if I grab them too hard? What if I scare them away? But suddenly my hands have found the dolphins’ dorsal fins. LB and Ding glide forward, shooting through the water with aerodynamic grace and pulling me along in a swift, weightless ride. Water splashes up into my face and I’m in elementary school again, gleefully living out a long-forgotten fantasy on the backs of two beautiful, well-trained animals.
A second later I’m back at the dock and LB and Ding have zoomed away. I want to thank them for this brief, wonderful adventure, to communicate my thrill at something they’ve done a thousand times, but the dolphins are completely focused on Robin. They bob in front of her, jaws opened wide like baby birds, as she lobs each of them a big, juicy fish.
Want to swim with the dolphins? The structured swim lasts about two hours including orientation and dolphin interaction. Costs: $165-$185 Dolphin Plus, 31 Corinne Place, Key Largo. 1.866.860.7946 www.dolphinplus.com
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