Swimming with dolphins
By Frank Barrett, Mail on Sunday
Last updated at 18:42 05 August 2002
Should you interact with dolphins? From time to time I'm sent stern warnings telling me that places which offer 'dolphin encounters' are really a sort of dolphin sweatshop.
Poor benighted dolphins, you get the impression, are locked away only to be brought out from time to time to perform beastly tricks for humans.
There's a part of me that agrees with this - I'm a vegetarian, after all.
But another part wonders whether occasionally we mistakenly get too worked up about things.
I know that a lot of animals are maltreated, but a substantial number also live the life of Riley (our 19-year-old cat for one).
So on a visit to the Bahamas when a chance to swim with dolphins was offered, I was tempted. But nobody mentioned kissing.
Have you ever kissed a dolphin? Probably not.
They're bristly, blubbery and - let's not beat about the lagoon here - they suffer from very, very bad breath. It's like snogging a fishmonger's counter.
So when a dolphin rises out of the water in front of you and puckers up - what would you do? I winced.
'Hey, you need to go to kissing school,' scolded Marcie, the dolphin's minder, who was standing behind me.
With Marcie's encouragement, Blue the dolphin meted out appropriate punishment by digging his snout in the water and splashing me in the face.
Dolphin Encounters on Blue Lagoon Island - a 20-minute boat ride from Nassau harbour - is almost certainly frowned upon by dolphin conservationists.
In our 'Close Encounter' session, Blue was put through his paces - offering kisses and hugs, but also sticking out his flippers and offering to dance with each of us.
I'd often heard about the 'positive vibes' emitted by dolphins, and indeed being next to Blue encouraged a strange feeling of elation.
The extraordinary Atlantis Hotel on nearby Paradise Island offers close encounters with an even wider choice of marine life - 50,000 marine animals - housed in the world's largest tropical aquarium.
It's hard to know which is more impressive: the water park or the hotel complex with its casino and dozens of cafes and restaurants.
Even so, we were intrigued by the herds of lobsters that swarmed en masse across the aquarium floors.
Someone said it was a mating ritual. Now kissing a lobster - that's something I really couldn't contemplate . . .
Travel facts
Virgin Holidays (www.virginholidays.com tel: 0870 000 0870) offers holidays at the Atlantis resort from £989 per person, including return scheduled flights to Miami with Virgin Atlantic Airways, connecting flights to Bahamas, transfers and seven nights' accommodation at the Atlantis (room only).
A session at Dolphin Encounters (www.dolphinswims.com) costs $75 (£48).
Further information: www.bahamas.co.uk.
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