Sensational cetaceans

I've never personally met a dolphin, though on a personality test I chose to be one if I had to be an animal. I've heard remarkable stories about dolphin behavior, and prompted by a photo of someone with a dolphin, I thought I would add to the record these stories that came to me from friends.One of them who lives in Providenciales (Turks and Caicos) told me that there was one there named "Jojo" who guided boats through rocky passages between the islands. It did that for years, until it's untimely death.

There was a lady who went to one of those "dolphin encounter" places on the East coast and was very disturbed because this dolphin kept bashing her in the side. She had to get out of the water. Soon she found out that she had a cancer at that spot which was discovered because she had the bruise checked.

A friend returned from Baja California. A couple by the pool told him of an encounter they had while boating in the Gulf. They were tooling along and suddenly found themselves surrounded by dolphins. The guy stopped the boat and told his wife "I'm going in to play!" he went in and the dolphins nearby stated roughhousing with him. It's what he wanted. He kept telling her "Come on in! They will be careful with you." She hesitated, but eventually went in. The dolphins treated her in an entirely different way. They must have picked up on the attitudes somehow. Amazing!

This one takes the cake, though, as far as I'm concerned. I heard it from a lady who did animal massage. She specialized in working with animals in zoos who had been adversely affected by captivity. Wish I kept her number. This was, actually, one of her less amazing stories: A friend of hers grew up in England, but her family had a beach house on the Gold Coast in Africa. They went there every summer for a couple of months. She got used to playing in the ocean and seeing many dolphins, some of which would come up to her in the water. Some years later she got married and did not go to the house for some time.She only went again when she had a two-year-old son, whom she took with her. Well, they were playing in the water, but she had him straddled, you know, like between her legs for safety. Well, this big dolphin comes up and parks in front of them and won't go away. She gets used to it and after a while gets up and playfully puts her son on the animal's back. It's right there, and what an opportunity to let him get a feel of something amazing, eh?Well, instinctively the kid grabs the dorsal fin. The second that happens, the dolphin bucks and takes off with the kid down the beach and then out into the water. The mother is panicking, screaming, out of her mind!! Finally, she can't see them anymore in the waves and she is just exhausted from screaming. She stops for a second and hears something familiar: she hears her son, somewhere out in the water, laughing and laughing and laughing! Soon, the dolphin returns with the boy astride. The mother grabs the kid, the dolphin squeals, and swims off.

Well, the next day, she's down at the beach with the kid again. That's what they do down there; the beach is the entertainment. So, she's in the water with the kid again, and this dolphin comes up again and keeps pestering her, nudging her with its side and nose. It's pretty obvious what's up: the animal wants the kid on its back. The kid is screaming, wanting on to the dolphin. Can you imagine the debate going on in this mother's head and heart? Well, guess what? To her own amazement, she finds herself putting the kid on the dolphin's back, and off they go! She's in tears, but again, there's the laughing coming from off the water, out there, somewhere! So what happens is that this becomes a daily routine, each day making a longer excursion into the sea, and it becomes, in my opinion, one of the most amazing stories of animal encounters ever. And that was the last summer they went to the beach house.