The Dolphin In-Water Adventure - 2007916
On September 16, 2007, Beverly and I partook in an awesome experince at the Indianapolis Zoo: the Dolphin In-Water Adventure. While Beverly is currently an elementary teacher at a local school, she has always dreamed of working with marine mammals, dolphins in particular. Of course, I would love nothing more than to see her achieve this dream, so I surreptitiously arranged for this unique experience that I hoped would provide her with a glimpse into that world, and allow her to learn if she truly wants to pursue this vocational avenue.
We arrived at the zoo about a half-hour early; purchase into the Adventure includes Zoo admission, so this allowed us to explore the "Oceans" briefly before heading to the Education Center, where we would meet up with the others partaking this program. The young lady that met us there quickly explained what would happen during the program and then led us to the Dolphin Pavilion where we would be sitting through a short "class" to explain dolphin physiology and some "fun facts" about dolphins and whales. We were then treated to the dolphin show that happens regularly at the zoo. Once the show was over, we stayed put while everyone else vacated the pavilion. I was to be an observer for the program, while Beverly would be the one to actually don the wet suit and get into the water with the dolphins and trainers.
There were five other participants in the "adventure" and each one had at least one observer - someone to take pictures, more or less. The six participants were divided into two groups of three and taken to seperate tanks where they would be interacting with the dolphins. The activites for the day range from learning about and giving the gestures that communicate to the dolphin what you want him/her to do, to learning about interacting directly with and touching the dolphins. It was explained thoroughly that we never "tell" the dolphins to do anything, we are "asking" them - it is always up to them to decide if they'd like to participate.
The program lasted about 2 hours total and Beverly got a picture taken with one of the dolphins "kissing" her cheek. I tried to get some shots with a camera, but my inexperience with the camera combined with the fact that I rarely knew where to point it (no one was telling me where the dolphins were going to be at any moment) resulted in several blurry pictures. Once the adventure was concluded, we strolled through the zoo and managed to get some pictures of the other beasts they have there. The link below takes you to our photo album of the day:
Dolphin Adventure/Day at the Zoo