D is for Dolphin

I’ve always wanted to swim with dolphins. I’m a SCUBA diver and I’ve dived with all sorts of amazing underwater creatures, but never dolphins. They tend to stay towards the top of the water. I’ve seen several dolphins as they’ve followed my dive boat out to a site. I’ve watched on as they’ve preformed a private show for me off the coast of southern Chile. Yet I’ve never swum with them.

In Cuba this past summer, I had the chance to. In fact, it was meant to be one of my splurges on that trip.  But after seeing the condition of the two places I was going to do it, I changed my mind. I didn’t want to spend money towards places that I was pretty sure were not treating their animals well.

Instead, I’d like to swim with them naturally, in the wild. Perhaps at the beginning or end of a dive, near the surface, they might find me. Or maybe on a sailing trip, I might stumble upon them and jump in to join them.

This is not something I am going to make happen like some other bucket list goals, but rather, I hope one day it will simple occur organically like so much of life tends to do.