Of Land and Sea

Everyone knows the general area where the dolphins live...sometimes when you're driving along the road by the ocean you can see them jumping waves. We've crossed them a few times in the boat...but this past Saturday was the first time we've ever gotten in the water with them.

I found this Groupon for 50% off a day trip on a catamaran. (Can't find soft pretzels or microwave popcorn, but Groupon exists here...)  It didn't take much to convince Richard and a few friends that this needed to happen. 

I wanted to see the dolphins so, so badly. I said a little prayer in my head to them while boarding the catamaran. Our guide, Gregory, told us he sees them on 98% of his trips, so I was very hopeful. After only 30 minutes, we started to see fins slipping in and out of the waves. When Gregory asked if anyone wanted to swim with them and I practically exploded with happiness. 

Richard got a little taste of sailing...now we're dreaming of sailing around the world one day...this will definitely happen. 

The playful little guys came right up to the boat, jumping and swirling around us :-) It was incredible.

So Gregory tells us to get in and hold on to this rope going across the underside of the catamaran, right above the water. We all lined up on it and put our masks on. And THIS is what we saw...

There was a nice Belgian couple with us who thankfully had an underwater camera! 

Gregory started driving the boat forward. We hung on to the rope for dear life with our heads under, not believing what we were seeing. The dolphins--8 in total--were very curious, they kept swimming back and forth in front of us, flipping and turning and staring. We dorkily waved back at them. As we moved, I kept feeling little pinches on me...I found out later there were a ton of tiny jellyfish stinging us as we bumped into them. 

There was one rather hilarious dolphin who started as a blurry face from far below us...he wasn't swimming, just kind of vertically sitting there. His cute little dolphin face was smiling directly at me, and somehow he was just getting closer and closer without moving. It reminded me of those Disney cartoons from when we were little, that started out like this:

At first Donald's face is this little dot but then he gets closer and closer and BOOM he's smiling IN YOUR FACE. That's like my dolphin friend. Except he turned at the last second, right in front of me, and did a little backflip. Thinking about his smiling dolphin face still makes me laugh. 

It was one of the greatest moments of my life, jellyfish stings and all. After about 20 minutes we left them to their dolphin lives and went our separate ways.

After that, Richard and I left the sea for some higher ground. Up the mountains to a town called Cilaos for a weekend getaway with the in-laws.

Our Hotel

We did lots of little hikes through the forest :-)

What started out as Richard and I vs. His Parents became me vs. Mr. Serveaux because the other two are hopeless ;-) I don't even know who won because they don't have the same rules!!! 

Richard does this dorky mustache "joke" with that grass-like stuff on the trees EVERY time we go hiking together...now I know where he gets it from....

They even had a little motocross trail nearby for Arthur! 

 Ok so yeah it was a great weekend. :-)