Dolphins Galore!

Swimming with the dolphins was amazing.   At the Hilton they have 14 Alantic Bottle-Nosed Dolpins.  They actually are allowed to have up to 136 dolphins because of the large size of their enclosure.   Right now they have 2 babies, one 18 months old and the other 2 years old.   Their oldest dolphin, Eva, is 38 and dolphins in the wild only live to about 25.   They live longer at the Hilton because of the good quality care that they get.  I got pictures taken with Kao, an eight year old female.  We watched Shaka get her teeth brushed and fed her some fish afterwards.  The best was when we got to swim with Pukanala in the deeper dolphin tank.   We watched her swim under us with our masks on, she splashed us, and did tricks when we did certain hand signals.  The dolphin in the top picture is of Shaka. The second picture is of my mom and I floating on our backs with Pukanala and when we started kicking our feet, she flipped her tail and splashed us.    The third picture is of Kao when she came to say hello to us.  The last picture is of my sister, Bethany, giving Pukanala a hand signal.   It sure was a once in a lifetime experience.