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Friday, October 27, 2006

Friday, October 27, 2006 ~ Day 7

After a long and busy day yesterday, we were up and going early again...we docked at Cozumel, Mexico at 9:00am this morning. Today was the day I was excited about!!  We were going to swim with the dolphins!!!



We got off the boat and had a little time before our excursion left for the park, but we weren't brave enough to go off before hand, so we just hung at the pier watching people and looking out at the water.  When it was time for our excursion, we divided up into groups and got in taxi's and went to the park.  Now, I just thought I was scared of the way they were driving in Cayman!!! man that man was driving like a crazy fool!!!



Our excursion choice of the day was Dolphin Swim Adventure at Dolphin Discovery at Chaakanaab National Park. When we got there, we learned a little about the park - like it was almost completely taken out by a hurricane (not sure which one - I think it was from 05) and they were doing a bit of reconstruction.  The park was pretty and had some really neatly designed 'huts' - Rog was really intrigued by them and took several pictures there.  We got a lesson on dolphin language, also known as training signals, and the we got to get in the water! We learned how to ask to give a kiss, to get a kiss, a hug and how to ride their fins.  There were 10 of us in the group, and we were on a platform that was supposed to be waist-deep, it was more like pit-deep on me, and we each got our turn to give a kiss, get a kiss and to get a hug. After we all had our turns with our hugs and kisses, we got to swim out a little ways and do the ride signal. 


The dolphin would come up behind us, let us grab her fins and pull us back to the group!!  What a rush!!  It was such an awesome experience. Dolphin Discovery had someone taking pictures of everything, we got one of each of us doing all four of the commands and an edited video of the time.  The video did included everyone that was in our group, and was about 10 minutes, but it was worth it - the kiddos love it!  After we got out of the water and cleaned off, we browsed the gift shop, and had some lunch.  While we were waiting on our cab to take us back to the pier, we got to explore a bit more of Chaakanaab Park.  Rog was still snapping pictures!!  Once we got back to where the pier was, we still had a little time, so we did a little shopping - not much - all the places were name brand stuff- there were no little junk shops - you know - the fun ones to shop at.  We walked back down the peir to the ship


- it was a good little trek- and then from our balcony, we watched the rest of the people stagger back to the boat. There was also another boat docked across the peir from us, so we watched it and chatted across to some of the people on it.  At 6:00 pm we watched the boat push off from the dock, then we went down to the dining room for dinner.  Where we were sitting we could see the skyline of the town as the sun went down and it got dark, then we saw a few lighted ships out in the distance. As we were finishing up with dinner, our head waitress came up and spoke to us - he knew or first names, but he approached us with Mr and Mrs last name. We were a bit confused - he had called us by our names all week.  Well, he asked if we were here celebrating our anniversary, and we said yes, and he asked when was it, we told him it was yesterday and he apologized repeatedly for missing it.  He told us that they were not supposed to miss special occasions and told us that he would make up for it the next night. When we were done with dinner, we got up and walked toward the windows that our backs were to during dinner and there was a skyline of a town. Didn't think much about it - went on up to the room, turned on thr tracking channel and it appeared that the ship was going to round the corner pretty close to Cancun, so we just figured that we were passing Cancun. We sat out on the balcony and watched the shoreline get closer and closer - we were close enough that we could hear the sounds of the town - like an ambulance!!  Well, while we were watching and listening, Leaundro came out on the balcony next to us - we said hi to him and jokingly asked what was he doing out on the balcony enjoying the sites. He told us that he wasn;t enjoying the sites, he was out there trying to figure out why we were back in Cozumel!!! Excuse me!!! We were BACK in Cozumel.  He said there were only 2 reasons we would have turned around and went back - a storm (which there was lightening out in the distance - everynight we saw some lightening!!) OR a medical emergency.  Well, sure enough, that ambulance we heard was seen off in the distance with it's flashing lights waiting at the pier in Cozumel. We watched a tender boat approach us and pull right up to the side of us - right below our room - and watched a doctor wheel a gurney onto the ship, and a few mintues later, we watched them wheel a loaded gurney right back off the ship, on to the tender boat and off it went back to the dock!!  As the boat was pulling up beside us, we were turning (to get back on course). After we were turned around and headed back in the right direction, the captain came on and told us what was going on and that the man was going to be fine.  Now, I don't know about you, but I don't think I owuld be FINE if I was left in the hospital in Cozumel Mexico!! After all the excitment, it was late and we crashed.



Onto Day 8~

1 comment:

  1. Oh, my goodness - I'll have to show Rachel this picture - how fun! - Charity

    ReplyDelete

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