The Lee Family: Swimming with Dolphins!

On Friday we made plans to swim with dolphins at Marineland which is just south of St. Augustine, at 2:30pm! Connie suggested it a few days before and after looking into it, the girls were super excited and it seemed like a really great adventure to do together. Of course, it wasn't cheap so it was a big decision. Also, because of Olivia's age, I had to go as well. As I thought about it more, it sounded like such a fun thing to do and bought the tickets and were excited to go!

The girls woke up around 9am on Friday morning and Sofia and I headed to the beach for our "last" visit of the trip. We swam, played in the sand and built the last sand castle of our trip, while Olivia played with Grandma and then swam in the pool. She did come down to the beach briefly, but was back up at the pool within 20 minutes. She is just not a fan of the sand. Around 11:30am, we headed back to the condo so we could shower and start the drive to Marineland. On the way, we stopped for lunch which was really good. The girls both ordered the mac and cheese, which was homemade and delicious! After eating, we continued driving up the coast, which was a fun and beautiful drive right along the beach. We drove through Flagler Beach, which is super cute and looked like a really fun place to visit sometime. There were lots of cute restaurants and nice beaches and it wasn't over-crowded. We continued driving and arrived at Marineland about 45 minutes later. We parked, checked in with the dolphin program and then walked around to see some of the other marine animals. Marineland is pretty small, but they have a few sharks in tanks and ocean turtles. It was pretty interesting and it was fun to watch the sharks swim around so effortlessly in their tank.

Soon it was time to make our way to the dolphins and it was a good-sized set of tanks. Unfortunately, a storm threatened overhead, so we were led into a classroom to wait until the threat of lightening passed. The girls had fun poking around and checking out the turtle shells, live snakes (in aquariums), and other things. Before long, we were free to change into our swimsuits and make our way to the dolphins! I think I was just as excited as the girls! We had our picture taken together after each of us were fitted for a life jacket and then we made our way into the shallow area of the dolphin pool! We were placed in a group of the three of us and another girl who was maybe 12 and who has swam with dolphins several times before. Our dolphin trainer introduced herself and the dolphin we would be swimming with for the next 30 minutes. The dolphin had an unusual name that none of us could remember. The trainer told us that her name came from the Timucua Indian chief, who it is believed may have been the first American native to see the landing of Juan Ponce de León near St. Augustine in 1513.

For the next 30 minutes, the trainer let us rub the dolphin and learned how to give the hand signals to ask the dolphin do different things, including "waving," "singing," jumping and flipping out of the pool, and chasing and collecting a ball. After each of the commands, we were able to give the dolphin a small fish. The fish went down whole, without any chewing! The dolphin was so remarkable and seemed so much like a "human" in many ways. The trainer told us that dolphins are actually unable to hear our voices, so no amount of talking is understood by them. They use a dog whistle set at a certain frequency for the dolphins to hear. It really is amazing how well-trained the dolphins are and how much they respond, even to the group of us. It was super cool! A young girl took photos of us as we did different things with the dolphins, which we could then buy the photos separately. Connie was on the far side of the dolphin pool and took a bunch of pictures! The time really flew by and it seemed like we'd only had about 10 minutes with the dolphins when it was time to say goodbye. It was such an amazing and fun experience.

After saying goodbye to our dolphin, we changed back into our dry clothes and then headed to the gift shop, where the girls were excited to buy "something." Grandma had given each of the girls a few dollars, and we both thought they would buy a key chain. Instead, they both fell in love with stuffed animals - a huge long eel for Sofia and a pink dolphin in a purse for Olivia. I told them we wouldn't be spending that much and didn't need any more stuffed animals. That didn't go over so well, but they agreed to pick out key chains, we bought the photos of our experience and headed home. CK was scheduled to arrive back from his work trip to Boston around 3pm, but the flight from Charlotte got cancelled and he wasn't due until 9pm! We are bummed that he couldn't be there to meet the dolphins.

Olivia with her "puppy dog" face made at lunch.