I’ve tried many times to see marine life, but usually to no avail. I’ve been able to catch glimpses of dolphins off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland and I took a dolphin tour in Dingle, Ireland to see the infamous “Fungie”, who made a brief appearance, but didn’t do more than show off his dorsal fin. Fungie had been entertaining folks, and feeding the families of boat tours operators, for nearly 40 years. I was saddened to hear that he hadn’t been spotted for many months in 2020.
What can I say… COVID… seems to be the answer for everything. Maybe Fungie needed to socially distance because he hasn’t returned. :0(
Yet another time I visited something right before it changed forever…. but that’s another blog I guess.
Anyway, back to Captain Derek’s tour.
I was visiting Tybee Island, just a hop-skip-and-jump from Savannah, Georgia and had been looking through the guest book in the adorable condo I’d rented for the week. There were multiple entries referring to Captain Derek’s Dolphin Adventure and all gave glowing reviews. It seems the price had gone up this year to $25.00 pp, but it is not unreasonable given the guarantee that you’d see dolphins and the promise of the reduced capacity of people on their tours. I decided to book the tour on a whim and was happy that I did.
I checked in for my tour at the allotted time and watched as the crowd grew. I started to get nervous as a bus tour arrived with an additional 9 other guests. We ended up going out on two separate boats to keep capacity low, which I appreciated.
We were spotting dolphins the moment we left the dock. Mostly just breaking the surface for air and playing with a shrimp boat. It was great to spot them and fun to enjoy the boat trip and sea spray. I figured that was as good as it was going to get and stopped trying to get a great photo of the elusive mammals. Instead I just relaxed and enjoyed the moment.
On the return trip, however, we were directed to the back of the boat, as were the passengers on the other boat. Both boats began speeding through the waters to create a lovely wake to entice the dolphins to play. This made life a little more interesting and the dolphins were up for some playtime.
I was ecstatic to see them playing in the waves and to watch the wake caress the sea grasses as the fading waves curled towards the shoreline. Was a very peaceful afternoon that I was very grateful for.
Snippets and Tidbits 