Attack of the Spotted Dolphin

What a day on the Vandenberg!  Too busy (shorthanded because of summer vacations) the past couple of weeks to write about giant loggerhead turtles and a six foot hammerhead at the wreck...but diving with dolphin deserves an entry.  I have seen so many dolphin during my six years in key west, however, repeated attempts to swim with dolphin have failed.  It is not uncommon for a pod of dolphin to swim next to the boat...kind of funny though how in the summer when it is flat calm...the air they expel through their blow holes sounds a bit like divers' bubbles breaking the surface.  When I turned around wondering why divers were coming back to the boat so soon...I was pleasantly surprised to see a pod of dolphin just off the port beam.  After five minutes of telling the Dive Master Ben about my failed attempts to swim with dolphin...I realized the dolphin were in no hurry to leave...today might be the day I thought.  I pulled out the Captain card and played it (meaning Ben had to stay on the boat while I went to swim with the dolphin)...I grabbed my mask and fins and slid quietly in...wondering if my cannonballs of past was what had always scared them away.  Immediately I saw three dolphin...which in my mind meant I had succeeded...I could check off the swimming with dolphin box.  The crazy thing was...I swam with them for ten minutes and they didn't seem to be in a hurry to go anywhere.  They swam all around me, and let me swim up close next to them.  They used their sonar to get a close up view of me...and seemed to be in quite a playful mood...slapping their tails on the surface and looking jovial.  I counted 10 in the pod...including a couple of babies.  I started to feel guilty after ten minutes, having left Ben on the boat (A recent Marine Biology graduate from Brown)...so I swam back to the boat and let Ben get in on the fun.  The most amazing part of the entire trip was that the dolphin stayed for about a half an hour...allowing our divers a once in a lifetime opportunity to extend their safety stop by about fifteen minutes and have dolphin swim all around them.  It is hard to explain to our guests how rare an event today was...and how fortunate they were to be a part of the experience.  People always look at me with a skeptical smile when I tell them 'things like this never happen...no really...I have never seen this before'.  Anyway, I'll stop rambling about spotted dolphin.  I made a German couple swear on their life that they will email me the pics and video they shot during the safety stop...so therein lies the proof...we will see.  I'll keep you posted.