Yesterday was a pretty cool day. My birthday present to myself was getting up at the crack of dawn and heading due north to spend the early morning hours with the dolphin trainers and vets at the Baltimore Aquarium. Along for the ride was my son, Spence, and his girlfriend, Taylor, who is a hopeful future trainer herself.

We met our new best friend, Carol, at the employee entrance on a cold, blustery, but sunny morning at the Inner Harbor and we started the morning going on a little tour of the other related facilities, which included the rehab/rescue unit, the medical unit, and the food prep area (where we got to stick various vitamins inside small frozen fish to be given to specific dolphins later as part of their morning diet.) Then it was on to talk to the trainers tankside, and to observe them and the vets go through their morning routine with each of the six dolphins.

Spence and Taylor pick Crystal and Carol’s brains…

One of the highlights was watching and interacting with the alpha female of their little pod, the massive five-hundred- and-fifty pound Nani, and her nine-month-old baby, Beau. And what a little rascal he is! We got to see film footage of him being born, and of the rather complicated process of nursing. (It’s a wonder any of them survive!) Mother and son are still in a rear “nursery” tank (mostly because, for all he’s a little handful, Beau won’t “gate” yet, meaning he won’t go through the gateways to the other tanks quite yet - very scary for him.) So, while mom occasionally makes forays into the big tank, where the public can see her once they open for business, for the most part, the two are not on view. So we felt very privileged to get to hang out with them for as long as we did.

Here is one of the trainers working with Nani and Beau…the baby is the one on the right. He’s mostly nursing, but he is learning to catch small pieces of fish…and quite proud of himself when he manages to swallow one!

The tank area is really nice, all windows along one side and very sunny. It was quiet and peaceful, before public hours, and all the trainers, after doing their husbandry checks, started going through their behaviorial routines. It was fun getting to see which dolphins liked which games, and to watch the social hierarchy at work, especially between the younger two females.

As a special treat, later on that morning when they’d opened to the public and were having their first show of the day, we got special up front seats and Taylor got to be part of the show as the assistant to the handlers. It was a great way to cap off an extraordinary morning.

So thank you to Carol, Crystal, and Carolina, and the rest of the crew, for your patience and willingness to share your knowledge, experience, and enthusiasm. It’s not a day we’ll soon forget.

Okay, on to this week’s Giveaway! How about an advance review copy of the up-and-coming final installment of my Glass Slipper, Inc. series, NOT SO SNOW WHITE? (Have no fear, they can be read in any order.) To enter, just send an email to donna@donnakauffman.com with the words PICK ME! in the subject line. Friday morning I will choose a winner from a random pick of the entries. Good luck to all!

And happy Monday, everyone.

Tags: Writing //