Day 27: Dolphin Day!

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Today we woke up after a long sleep as we had a relatively early night last night after we rolled home after our giant steaks! We were excited cos today was Take 2 Dolphin Day! We sorted through some pics and then got up and went down into the town to get some breakie. We went back to the same place we were at yesterday as our omelette was amazing. And half of our group had the same idea as we bumped into about 5 of them there! We wandered about the town for while and then headed back to the hotel to chill out before our dolphin adventure. We grabbed a coconut curry chicken wrap to share and take-away from Earth Mamas and it was so yummy! We came into town again to get a taxi out to Anthony's Key to see the dolphins and arrived and had no idea where we were going. We walked for a while and eventually saw a sign saying 'dolphin'! Cant go wrong with that hey?!

We found everyone in the same boat as us – literally! There was a giant group of 13ish in an American Family who were all pretty loud but seemed lovely enough! There were a few others as well and we all hopped on a tiny boat headed to the dolphin encounter. It was only about a 5-10 min boat there and we could see them all jumping out of the water as we arrived! Everyone was so excited! They are such cool animals! We got off one by one from each side so we didnt tip the boat and then headed into the undercover area to be filled in on any info we needed for the arvo.

We got split into groups of 5 and assigned a trainer and a dolphin. Ours was name 'Ken' and he was adorable. We all had to enter the water side by side and stand infront of Ken. The current was really strong so we were all swaying side to side trying to stay in a line! The trainer taught us all about Ken and his body parts and how strong he is. It was interesting to hear that they all have 4 fingers and a thumb just like us but they are fused in the fin! This helps them swim so fast. He made Ken do some tricks and gave him a heck of a lot of fish as rewards. Apparently theyre not called 'tricks!' they are behaviours! He sorted snapped that back at one of the girls that asked like it was atypical question that got asked and the wrong word to use!! At one time he got him to swim as fast as poss in a circle and then he came hurtling towards us and spun at the last minute and stopped so quickly! We thought he was gonna run into us but he was amazing! We posed for a few professional pics but unfortunately our photographer had us staring right into the sun so everyone in our group had to squint at the camera! But was awesome having the dolphin kissing us! He kinda slammed into our cheeks! They then gave us 10 mins to take our own pics of Ken while he was ding a few things but we werent allowed to take pics with him so Ben and I snuck a few sneaky selffies in! Didnt turn out amazing but Ken, Ben and I were all in the shot! Success!

After the encounter and pics we got told to leave all cameras including underwater cameras, which we were gutted about cos we had bought it especially for this, on the side and get our flippers and gear on. We lubbed up our masks and got them on then just jumped into the encounter. It was the sea but was fenced off. It was still pretty massive and there was coral, fish and 20-30 dolphins swimming around in it! We had 30 mins snorkelling around. At one point I lost everyone and the current was pulling me really strongly to the fire coral (which is apparently exactly as it sounds) by the fenced off bit! I was a lil worried actually but cleared my constantly steaming goggles which doggy paddling away from the coral as fast as possible, and themn swam outta danger area as fast as poss. Wasnt reallly dnager but I was a lil worried. I swam back to the beach, cleared my goggles again and saw that everyone was all in one cluster so that must be where all the dolphins were!! So I swam towards everyone and a whole lotta dolphns were swimming fast as directly towards me! It was crazy! Once I found everyone it was fun and we snorkelled and dove down into the sea and played with the dolphins! They were so friendly as we both loved it so so much!

After 30 mins we were sad to leave but so stoked with our lil adventure and came away absolutely loving dolphins! We stopped at the gift shop and looked at our pics which were awesome! We only had $44 with us and the couples package was $50 and we had to get a taxi home also! Thankfully they guy was lovely and he gave it to us for $40 and we managed to get a taxi for $4 when it cost $6 on the way there! Lucky!

Once we got back we were knackered and everyone seemed to be doing their own things tonight in terms of dinner etc. So we caught up with everyone and filled them in on our dolphin experience. Jacob cornered me to ask about what happened yesterday with the dolphin booking and blamed it on the ladies in the office and it def was not there fault. He didnt even apologise so I told him we were really annoyed! His tip at the end of the trip is dwindling by the day!! Hed better up his game.

We had been recommended a seafood restaurant just around the corner from our hotel run by a gay couple so we decided to try that out and eat some healthy fish after our massive intake of red meat last night!! We both had catch of the day – sea bass and wok veges with potatoes. It was really yummy and a funky, quirky place which we loved! Unfortunately we think my wine was corked as it smelt and tasted terrible but Ben's was yum and we liked them too much to tell them so just said everything was great and headed off. Called Half Moon Bay restaurant and def recommend it! We then headed back and skyped the Hanson-Stewart Clan for about an hour which was really good and filled them in on our dolphon arvo as mum had put money towards this for me for my birthday! Thanks mum!! I then climbed into bed for an early night while ben typed up yesterdays blog and then told me he was going out to upload it but came back 45mins later and claimed he listened to the bombers game! They were down at half time so he came back stressed! But all was ok cos at 6am, clothes were on, he was down in the lobby and checking the score and they won! We had an amazing day today and are really sad to be leaving Roatan Island. It has been fab and a few more days would have been fantastic as I wanted to paddleboard and we both would have enjoyed just chilling out in the sun for an afternoon! Bring on Costa Rica!

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