It's A Windy View: We Got Dolphin Photos!!!

After an agonizing week of calling unsuccessfully several times a day and emailing every email address I can find associated with our vacation in Mexico...

WE GOT OUR DOLPHIN AND MANATEE PHOTOS!!!!

Today I tried one last desperate measure by Facebook messaging the hotel, Dolphin Adventures and Amstar dmc tours (who we booked our swim tour with) in a desperate hope to get someone to reply to us and help us get our photos before they were deleted and perged. Some wonderful person at Amstar dmc replied to my plea for help shortly after messaging them and in 30 minutes we had an email from the manager of Dolphin Discoveries providing all of our photos in a dropbox link!

I almost cried!!

I praised Amstar dmc and thanked them profusely. Angels I tell you! Angels!

With out further delay... Our Dolphin and Manatee Adventure!!!

We were only group doing the Dolphin Encounter (base level experience because the kids are so little. Not tricks with the dolphins. Just a basic introduction including kayaking with the dolphin at the end.

Originally, manatees were not part of our swim experience. Lucky for us we were the only Dolphin Encounter group because they let us sneak into the manatee enclosure with the rest of the other tours! I have never seen a manatee up close in real life. It was amazing to be so close to these gentile giants.

The manatees were all adolescent males, much smaller than they will grow to be. But they were still huge. They walked us out on the platform by group and the kids were trying to adjust to the cool sea water. All of a sudden our manatee pops up in front of us from under water and poor Mr Blue Eyes just about freaked completely out. Manatees are not the most striking creatures. He was large and funny looking and Mr Blue Eyes was pretty unsure about him.

The trainer had the manatee swim past us using romaine lettuce so we could feel him. He was very slimy with algae. That sealed the deal for Mr Blue Eyes. Nope. Nada. Not a fan of the manatee. My Brown Eyed Girl

So Handy Man and I took turns holding both kids so the other could interact with Andre - our manatee.

One of the tricks the trainer wanted us to do was to dangle a piece of lettuce above the water and place a foot/leg at the edge of the platform so Andre could swim up and grab onto your leg with his flippers for support and get his face out of water for a Kodak moment. Sure. No problem. Handy Man went first.

Got the picture. Reward Andre with his lettuce treat.

Piece of cake.

When my turn came, I positioned leg on the edge of the platform and dangled my lettuce over the water. Andre approached, and then started sniffing? licking? my leg up and down. His little whiskers were tickling me and I didn't know what to do. At this moment the trainer had not informed us that Andre and all amanatee lacked any teeth what-so-ever.

I was half laughing, half wondering if I was about to be mauled by this manatee in front of my family.

Finally Andre got with the program and grabbed my leg with his flippers - which is a whole other experience in itself!! - and we managed to accomplish the task together.

The trainer had Andre roll over on to his back and it was show and tell time.

Did you know that manatees are most closely related to elephants? They have three little left over toenails that look just like little elephant toenails.

Amazing!

They can hold their breath under water for about 20 minutes.

They are very slow moving and thus are at risk of injuries from boat propellers while feeding in shallow water.

Andre is six. They don not reach sexual maturity until they are nine to ten years old. They can live to be 50-60 years old in captivity.

They can get up to 13 feel long and weight up to 1300 pounds!

Manatees have these coarse hairs around their mouth that help them pull food into their mouth when eating.

And I got to feed an manatee carrots and potatoes!!!

Amazing!

After playing with Andre, we went over and met Elana!!

My Brown Eyed Girl stuck with me and Handy Man helped Mr Blue Eyes interact with Elana.

We started with a little warm up of having Elana swim by so we could touch her, the kids could get used to her and she could get used to us.

We even got to pet her belly.

We learned about where Elena's ears were.

How she breaths and makes all her sounds from her blow hole.

The trainer taught us the hand ques we were going to use to get Elana to interact with us and were were ready to rock!

First thing first... we needed to get some smooches in on our first date!

Elana, you are beautiful and even though we JUST met, I love you!

So amazing!

Mr Blue Eyes was not interested in kissing Elana.

He is more of a holding hands kind of guy on a first date (I can only pray...)

We all held Elana's flippers.

We had her come up out of the water and touch our hand on que.

She is so very smart!

Somehow in the moment, our photographer and trainer got Handy Man to flex his muscles for the camera???

I am having creative visions for our 2015 Christmas card....

Elana knows some other tricks... like splashing people.

Can you say you have been splashed by a dolphin?

How about held a dolphin in your arms?

We can!

So amazing to be actually swimming with Elana and my family! What an opportunity!

My kids were laughing and smiling and having a water fight with a dolphin! My heart was singing!

After swimming with Elana, we hopped into a couple of kayaks and she swam around us, pushed us in our kayaks and doing a few more tricks for us.

Mr Blue Eyes was much more relaxed in the kayak.

He reached to touch and interact with her on his own, from the safety of the boat. I am sure these large sea animals were pretty intimidating to a three-year-old.