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HeadroomSwimming with dolphins was a memorable experience Date published: 6/29/2006
I'm proud of several things about my spring break this year. I spent most of my time in the Bahamas without getting badly burned. I helped my mom remember to drive on the correct side of the road (by randomly shouting, "Left! Left!"). And I kissed a dolphin right smack on the mouth. Five seconds, no tongue--thank God. To me, this moment ranks right up there with meeting President Clinton, interning for the House of Representatives and wearing a giant sombrero during my second grade Christmas performance while my classmates danced around me and sang. For years, I've seen commercials advertising an hour or so swimming with dolphins at Florida resorts, where you have to reserve your place months and months in advance and share your time with a ton of other people. I should note here that we are not the type of family that plans things months in advance. We reserved a car and a room ahead of time, bought a few guidebooks and planned our vacation on the plane, en route to Grand Bahama Island. Right after we dropped our suitcases off, I found myself following the wake of a determined maternal unit, bewildered, while she managed to find a booth where we could reserve a swim with the dolphins. I had skipped over information about dolphin swims in the promotional material, assuming that we wouldn't be able to get in a week ahead of time. I did not factor in the current condition of the island, which was still recovering from Hurricane Wilma and trying to attract tourists again. I had petted a baby shark before, and lived in Baltimore, where I had been dragged to the dolphin show about 80 billion times. But I had always wanted to do something like this. The idea that it was actually going to happen slowed all brain activity for the next few hours, as I wandered around Port Lucaya turning the idea over in my brain, tripping over the wooden walkways between stores and running into people. The morning of the swim, we were taken out on a boat to the Underwater Explorers Society facility in Sanctuary Bay.
1. Be respectful. No personal attacks.
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