Sailing On Grace

2/11/16 Thursday Boot Key/Marathon, FL

On my! Such a full day! The sunrise was delicious.

Sunrise on Sisters Creek

Said bon voyage to our neighbor friends and I immediately felt "left" and my heart hurt from watching them leave.

neighbors gone

But then morning on the boat...on the boat...on the boat. A welcome and necessary change to all the early morning jump in the dinghy and go syndrome. Early, mind you, is around 9:00 AM, not to be confused with the olden days when I taught at USM and early was jump in the car and go at 6:45 AM. Apologies to all who are still doing EARLY.

A new blanket for our bed, one that doesn't hold as much of kitty hair as the fuzzy sleeping bags we've been enjoying.

Of course that meant changing the sheets and why not get another load of laundry together? I did some cooking (brownies) that turned out better than last baking adventure (corn bread muffins - toss!). David did a boat project. And kitty got lots of attention assuaging my guilt of too many long days away from her.

We met Dick & Nora for an adventure and decided to go to the Dolphin Research Center about 12 miles north of our marina. Dick drove. We rode at that amazing speed of 45 mph. Yikes! Still. An amazing visit. All the dolphins are in lagoons/pens where they are separated for various reasons: no sex so males and females are separate, there may be some age separation as a couple of dolphins are old (30 - 55, Molly being the elder stateswoman at 55), some are learning new skills/tricks/signals, there is the maternity ward. Excellent narrated "performances" during which 2 or 3 trainers showed us the skills the dolphin had learned w/trainers using hand signals and sign language to cue them.

I find it curious and wonderful that the dolphin have learned so much of "our" language/hand signals and we've not yet learned their language. Causes me to wonder what they're saying about how stupid humans are and how they have to humor us. Wondering if they've allowed themselves to participate in the research projects/facilities so they can do their own research on humans, dolphin being of the superior intelligence and wanting to know more about lowly homo sapiens. Possible sci fi essay.

Anyway, I learned so much and saw awed by the animals, and by the obvious love and respect they and the trainers appeared to have for each other. We talked to two of the narrators (different from the trainers) about their work and their schooling (there is an intense 1 year training program there). I got Tiffany to consider changing her addressing the audience as "guys" when much of her audience was female. We had a long chat with the medical director about birth control, health, disease that humans can transmit (Mercer). So much information gathered. Truly worth so much more than the admission price. I might want to go to school there.