These two girls were not healthy enough to go on the dolphin snorkeling adventure that we had planned for the whole family that morning (but Russ took the big kids). I did try to make them happy with a highly supervised little excursion down to the pool.
Ever snorkeled in a hot tub?
A funny memory from that day was when I left the girls to go up and get their snorkel gear from our room. I told them to stay OUT of the water and sit on our lawn chairs and rest till I got back. While I was up in the room I heard a knock on the door. I asked who it was and there was no answer. They knocked again and I asked again and this time a strange voice answered back, "Room Service." Curious, I opened the door and saw Chloe and Olivia laughing! Olivia did a good job disguising her voice. I guess they got bored waiting for me so they came to help.
Not many fish under there!
Still looking!
Not a very funny sign but we had fun reading it in every arrangement possible changing the wording and the emphasis because I misread it at first and Chloe thought it was funny.
Living on the edge by the infinity wall.
"Don't take my picture!"
"Ok, now take it!"
We spent a lot of that day resting in our condo. Head up the stairs to the third level.
F34
Living Room
Kitchen. Hey, where's Russ?
Tess and Rustin's room.
View from the front door. Spirally stairs leading up the to girls loft that had a queen size bed in it.
Chloe taking a mandatory reading break on the living room couch. Straight ahead of her is the master bedroom with a king size bed and huge bathroom with deep tub.
While we were relaxing, Tess, Rustin and Dad were on the adventure of a life time.
They went out on a speed boat with about 4 other people and chased a pod of wild spinner dolphins. Several times they would be told to jump in the water and start swimming but they couldn't catch them. They would circle around them in the boat, try to get ahead of them and then try again. They wore themselves out chasing them once they caught them but it was well worth it!
This is a great video of Tess and Rustin swimming with a wild pod of 43 (Tess counted) Spinner Dolphins. Russ is video-ing and swimming with them. If you watch closely you can see two of the dolphins mate! After searching for the pod for 45 minutes they got to swim with them for about 45 minutes and boy were they tired when they got home. The dolphins were tired too and they were already home! Apparently they head down to the bottom and sleep with half their brain turned off and one eye open. Really!
The beginning of this video is amazing and it really shows how close the kids are to the dolphins. Rustin is RIGHT BEHIND one and could have reached out and touched its tail, but they weren't supposed to. After that Russ thinks he turns off the camera but he doesn't and you might as well just stop watching cuz it gets really crazy and boring at the same time, unless you like videos of camera straps and hairy legs.
This last one is cool (Rustin shot this video) because you get a good look at the scars the dolphins got from the Cookie Cutter Sharks. They have white, perfectly round bite marks on them -like a round cookie cutter would make- sad, but true.
P.S. these dolphins are much smaller than bottle nosed dolphins and weigh about 150 pounds. A bottle nose dolphin weighs about 500 pounds!
They are called spinner dolphins because they LOVE to jump out of the water and spin in the air incredibly high and fast. It's very entertaining to watch. They say that they do it for communication and for fun!
This is video I took a few days later on a snorkel cruise where we all got to see them jumping out of the water. They didn't spin as much this time but you get the idea. It might even be the same pod.
These last four pictures I got online to give you a better idea of what they look like up close. I wish we could keep one in our pool!
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