prevented her from lowering her arms to her sides and which was described
by Emma herself as the ‘jelly baby’ look), further encumbered by flippers,
mask and snorkel, and plunged into a tank of sea water best described as 'not
warm'. Not exactly the romantic vision of gliding through crystal clear warm
water we had both imagined.
Then there were the dolphins themselves, two characteristics of which
we had not properly comprehended when booking the excursion. First, they
are really really huge, one was seven foot long and most are at least man-
sized. Second, she was swimming alone with four of these massive
mammals. Well, swimming was at times a little inappropriate as a description
of her marine activities. Semi-drowning was often the best course available in
light of the aforementioned swimwear and water temperature.
Emma had expected to either be swimming with other paying visitors,
or to only meet one dolphin, so she was a little shocked on discovering what
she had let herself in for. Fortunately the first hour of her session was devoted
to a briefing on dry land provided by Kyle, a surfer dude by looks, attitude and,
probably, actual fact. Kyle taught Emma various dos and don’ts about
swimming with the dolphins. When to make eye contact, how to swim without
presenting aggressive body language (not swimming head on towards the
dolphins), to swim without using your arms, etc. This took about five minutes.
He also taught her about biology, anatomy, genealogy and copulation -
spending about 20 minutes each on these last two subjects. Great preparation
- just not for swimming with them! Then it was time to get kitted up, and get in
the water, for which she had about 40 minutes.
The first quarter of this time was spent swimming round in the massive