Another warm sunny day in Southern Alabama. Much prefer the climate here than Texas, you can walk around without getting blown over.
Today was dolphin cruise day. One of the resort residents organises a special rate for the cruise and lunch afterwards. We went on this trip last year and enjoyed it, so thought we’d try it again.
Before we headed out Lyn told me that there was no cold water in the bathroom. A little perplexing as there was hot water. Everywhere else in the trailer had both hot and cold water except the bathroom sink! I hate water problems.
We got down to the marina and were a little disappointed to learn that the general public would be joining our group. The disappointment was not because we had to mix with the riff-raff, but because only one boat would be going out. One of the ways to get the dolphins to come and “play” is to run two of the tour boats close (20ft) together and create a large wake between them. This gets the dolphins all excited and they start jumping about.
Come boarding time, most people headed for the bow area, but from last years trip we learnt that the stern was the best place.
We headed out into the bay and a couple of dolphins were spotted on the surface, the skipper positioned the boat closer to them and gunned it so we had a reasonable size wake. Sure enough the dolphins followed us jumping behind the boat.
Above Water Dolphin
There were 3 dolphins and they played around in the wake for about 5 minutes. We then cruised around the bay, but no more dolphins were sighted. We were a little disappointed as we had seen more activity last year, at least we had seen some dolphins though.
After about 30 minutes cruising a couple more dolphins were spotted, and the boat was brought closer to them and off we went again. This time there 6 dolphins following us, and they were close enough to the stern that we got wet when they jumped and landed back in the water, they were probably about 10 feet behind us. As well as jumping they spent a lot of time just under the water following us.
Underwater Dolphins
These six dolphins stayed with us for close to 15 minutes. In the end we got a much better show than the previous year.
Once the cruise had finished we went into the marina restaurant for a shrimp basket featuring local shrimp. Very tasty!
Back at the resort it was time to tackle the pesky water problem. I took the taps out then removed the cartridge, blew through all the pipes, put it together and it worked. Must have been some debris in the system blocking the flow.
Next stop was the pool as the outside air was in the 80’s. The pool was “refreshing” i.e. not heated, but once in it served its purpose and cooled us down nicely.