Home pagesThe People |
The Radiance  |
The Cruise |
This cruise
Satellite picture from Google Earth
The flat land that is Cozumel. This is as we sailed into our mooring spot. Interestingly, many times nowadays the cruise ships don’t actually anchor – they “station-keep” using propellers and thrusters. That allows them to creep closer to the shore as the tides turn or other ships leave, making the tendering to and from ship and shore shorter and quicker (And thus, the passengers happier!)
The ship from the tender
This is what the dolphin pens look like.
Michael shakes … er … flippers? … with Chaac. Chaac was named for the Mayan rain god. (Michael says; the guide didn’t seem to speak much English beyond his usual patter.)
We got to pet Chaac’s belly.
The guide points to Chaac’s ear hole (too small to see in the picture).
We got splashed a LOT with very salty water. Here, Chaac is ‘spitting/spraying’ water at the crowd.
Michael signals Chaac for “a kiss.”
Michael gets the kiss.
It was rainy, and we got wet from above and below!
You can see the rain, and this wasn't even the hardest it rained while we were in the pen.
 |  Chaac’s blowhole open and closed. |
We were backed up in a line against the chain link (our group was in the outermost pen), standing barefoot on a very painful grating that was about 3 feet wide; and waves were periodically coming by and upsetting my balance.
A different dolphin watching us arrive.
The dolphins seemed excited and happy to see each group arrive. (I suppose each group means more fish tidbits.)
Chaac passed back and forth before us many times…
…including swimming on his side and splashing us mightily with his tail!
“Standing” on command.
YUM! Fishy tidbits! It's worth the work for the prizes!
Bye-bye! It's been fun.
The ‘tale’-end of Cozumel.