My wife and I like to joke that we went to the Bahamas to swim with the dolphins and happened to get married, book a cruise and go on our honeymoon when we did it. The swim was only about forty five minutes or so but it was a real life changing experience. I'll tell you what I'll never forget it and I am pretty sure I can tell you highlight details about that swim 50 years from now.
The one brief moment I remember clearly as I type this was the look in Salvador's eye when he and I were playing around together. Our trainer gave us a few minutes to free swim with the dolphins and one of the things he suggested we do was to swim with the guys underwater in a dive. Salvador happened to see me go underwater and zipped over to me to see what I was up to. A dolphin really does zip and all I saw was a split second blur of a greyish animal whooshing in my direction as I dove. He knew my dive was going to be a quickie and that I was going to not go very deep or stay under for very long. I was looking right at him when he swam over. I was focused on watching him and was truly amazed at how fast he changed direction and closed the gap between us. Blink of an eye is pretty accurate.
Salvador spontaneously did one of those things that all intelligent animals do and did it really well. He looked at me in the eye as if saying I see you and love that you are here. What I liked was his method. He slowed to swim along with me as I dove and got to within about six inches of my face so that we were swimming side by side. The playful thing that Salvador did was turn his head a bit in my direction so that our eyes were super super close. I mean by that as close as two eyes could get underwater. I saw the playful look in his eye so closely that I probably could have stuck out my tongue and licked him.
The bonding I experienced of two guys swimming around underwater that day in the Bahamas was life changing. I'll never forget what I saw.
Salvador is the MAN ...even though he isn't a man he's a young dolphin just showing off what he can do. He's still the man.
