Dream Trip to Spain: An Afternoon of Dolphin Watching

We were suppose to have a free day with nothing to do.  After being on the go-go-go I was looking forward to it.  Most people were going to go shopping.  Neither my husband nor I was very interested in that and had planned on just spending the day at the beach.
   The plans got changed when they asked us if we would be interested in taking the catamaran cruise that  had been canceled from the first excursion.  It turns out they were still going to charge for it anyway, since it was going to get paid whether we used it or not they decided we might as well use it and enjoy it.  I'm so glad they did that because we sure did enjoy it. As it turned out the people who planned on shopping forgot that everything closes from 2-5.  Most of them had nothing to do during that time, while we were out enjoying the cruise.

I'm not positive of this but we drove to Puerto Deportive Marbella where we had to get off and then walk to the catamaran that we would go on.  We started down the pier and the only boat we saw was this one. We all joked about going to Gilligan's Island in that thing since it looked liked the 'Minnow' from that show.

Boat at the pier of the port of Marbella. You could tell  it has definitely seen some better days. I'm sure at one time this was a very nice boat.

But they had us keep on walking and we turned a corner and saw this one.  We were relieved to realize this had to be the one since there were no other boats around.  We took off our shoes and climbed aboard.

Catamaran for hire at Marbella Spain

 It didn't take us long to get out of the port area and into the Mediterranean Sea. The day was perfectly calm and I was amazed at how still the water was.  I'm use to Lake Eire and there are waves on it all the time.  Since the Mediterranean Sea is another large body of water I was expecting it to be like that lake.  I was surprise where you hardly saw a ripple in the water. 

One of our tour guides started to joke around.  He went to the end and raised his hands to the sea like they did in the movie Titanic.  We teased him about it and he denied he was doing that. Someone else joked that he was trying to raise creatures from the deep. 

    Just look at how perfectly still the water was.  Then all of a sudden we started to see some ripples.

We realized that some fish must had caused the disturbance.  But then as we watched we realized it wasn't fish but dolphins.  That got us all up and looking and trying to get photos. They are so thrilling to watch. 
Here he is trying to get a photo too.
  Eventually I did get some images.  But it was hard to do. I took a whole lot more of the rippling water just missing them as they went back under the water.  The thing that was frustrating was more often than not they were just cruising near the surface of the water like this barely making any ripples and were hardly noticeable.  

Every once in a while their fin would appear instead.  It seemed like they would come up and do things for a couple of minutes and then dive down and disappear for about 10 to 15 minutes.  Then they come up again in a totally different location.  You had to look for the ripples to figure out where they were and in what direction they were going. If you were lucky you could catch them raising up in the water in which case they would create some splashes and big ripples.

I know these aren't the best pictures but they were so exciting to me.  I was just happy to get whatever I could.  At one point they started to swim parallel to the boat.  I was surprised to look down and to be able to see them even thought they hadn't surfaced for awhile.  If you look very closely you can see two of them in the water below.  I couldn't get over how clear the water was to be able to see them like this.

Dolphins swimming in the Mediterranean Sea

At times it was almost surreal in seeing them and had a very mystical feel to it all. But other times when they broke the surface you had no doubt that they were actually there and seemed to be playing with us.

I liked this shot for its mystical feel to it.  I can see myself making this into an art piece to hang on one of my walls. 

This was one of my favorite shots where you could tell there was really one there swimming under our boat.  Someone else got a really good photo of this and paced it on facebook, so I know I wasn't the only one seeing these creates swimming with us.

Dolphin in the Mediterranean Sea

Eventually I got this one good one of the dolphin coming out of the water and making a splash.

Dolphin swimming in the Mediterranean Sea

 And then finally this one which is probably the best image I got of one.

Dolphin in the Mediterranean Sea

They disappeared for awhile and we got to the point we were just sitting or laying back and enjoying the cruise. With scenery like this:

Puerto Desportive Marbella

 or this

Marbella Spain as seen from the Sea, Sierra Blanca covered in mist

 

   This was two of our guides getting a well deserved break. 

These two girls were enjoying just laying and looking at the scenery when all of a sudden a dolphin decided to become playful with them.  It swam right under them and then spouted water up onto them. Then it dove down again right away.  So all we got was water splashing.

Like I said most of the time all we were able to see was the ripples and air bubbles but at least you had an idea where they were.

Eventually some people wanted to go swimming in the sea.  I had put my foot in the water earlier and knew it was too cold for me.  They said the water temperature was about 70 degrees.  I know from years of swimming I don't do well in water below 75 so I didn't join her. 
    I really admired her when she got in and started to swim toward the dolphins.  They kept their distance and she came back to the boat.

Because people were willing to get in the water they decided to go ahead and get the banana boat out.
 I've ridden on one before and know from past experience that if you hit a big enough wake you're going to end up in the water.  Since I didn't want to end up in the water. I just stayed on the boat.  The ones that did go did have fun until sure enough they ended up in the water. And boy did we hear the squeals when they landed in it.  It was definitely cold! for them. But they sure did have fun up until that point.

Here they are just getting ready to take off.

And them taking off, circling around us.

Cruising by so we were sure to see them.

Now doesn't that look like fun

 And them coming in with one person still being pulled in the water.

  One of the things that I did was to take our old camera since we were going to be on the water. We figured if it got wet that would be the better camera to get ruined.  Also I had so many pictures on the on the other camera we were afraid there wasn't much room for many more.
   I'm so glad I took that camera because I had forgotten it has a video feature on it.  My other camera has the same feature but I could never figure out how to get it to work, so I never used it.  This camera was easier than my other one to figure out and I decided to try to get some videos of the Dolphins swimming.
They're not the best but I did get 2 that I want to share. Now I'm going to see if I can include them here. (I can but only after agree to googles terms.  Well I thought I can - I can see this on another computer but can not on the Ipad - sorry about that.) The first one is only 11 secs and the second is 38.  I do recommend muting it since there was loud background music playing at the time and people talking. 

  The one thing that is so great about a trip like this is the networking that you can do.  When you are with other people on a boat for hours its hard not to talk with them.  Especially most of these people since they're sales people and are use to cultivating working relationships and are very easy to talk to and joke around with. Even if it was just small talk we still had fun getting to know each other.  Needless to say we made some friends and business associates and we know that someday it will be very beneficial to be able to call on them and ask their advice on something that they may have some experience in dealing with a particular issue.
    The other thing that was so fun was just the marveling at how different this was from anything we're used to doing during a normal basis.  These were definitely not your typical days and have a break from all the routine hassles of daily life was so refreshing and invigorating. Yet being gone like we were we did reach a point where we were missing it all and were looking forward to returning home to our love ones and businesses.

Like anything in life all good things must come to an end. We were out for a couple of hours but then it was time to come into port.  We came into Puerto Banus.  Here's what it looks like from the sea side.

 Approaching Puerto Banus from the sea.

I do like that light house at the end of the jetty.

Puerto Banus lighthouse

Puerto Banus, Spain

The shops along the pier ( Muelle Ribera - street) at Puerto Banus, Spain

The coaches were waiting for us, but a lot of the people opted to take a taxi back to the hotel so they could get some shopping in. We went on the coach.

   My husband and I are not big shoppers but there was one thing we were interested in getting and was having a hard time finding it.  The main thing my oldest son wanted from Spain was a copy of 'Don Quixote' written by Cervantes in Spanish.  This book was written in 1604 and is considered the first work of fiction published and sold for profit.  He had read different translation in English but they were very different in part as far as how they were translated.  He had studied Spanish in High School and College and though he knew enough Spanish to be able to read those different passages as the way they were written and finally figure out his own translation. 
  We told our Spanish guide while walking to the boat about the book  And how hard it was to find a book store and that was the only thing we were disappointed in not being able to get while we were there.  We had accepted the fact that it just wasn't to be and had gotten my son some other souvenirs that we thought he would enjoy instead. He said he's not surprised since all the books are going electronic and there were very few book store still open in the area. We were not expecting it and was surprised to find out that during our cruise the guide located a copy for us. He asked us if we wanted it even though it was expensive and we said yes. So on the way back since there were so few people on the bus and some of them wanted to get olive oil we stopped.  Since the guide knew where he was going he went and purchased it for us.  We were so grateful to him for stopping getting it.  It was a beautiful copy leather bound with gold leaf.  Inside it had replicas of the original prints that accompanied the text.
  Getting that book seemed to make the whole trip perfect.

  That and the ending evening.  There was a banquet for the final meal for the group.  Needless to say the food was excellent.  After doing and going the whole time we were there we thought it would just be the food and the farewell speeches and then a slide show of all the wonderful times we had together.  They did do the slide show during the cocktail hour.  But then they had a live band come and play while we ate, which we enjoyed listening to.  After most of us ate people and a few started to drift off to go pack since so many of them had early flight.  The last thing I was expecting was to see some Flamenco  dancers come on stage and start to dance. &  Boy they could dance.  At some points their feet were moving so fast it was hard to see them. Since this was totally unexpected I didn't have my camera with me and I sure did wish I did.  I was just grateful that some others did and were taking photos, that I knew would be shared on facebook.
   As they were dancing and we were watching I was thinking what a perfect way to end the trip.  To see these dancers in there native dress doing there native dances. It doesn't get any better than that.

  Once again I have to thank my husband for being so wonderful and for that company for hosting a dream trip of a lifetime. We had such a great time and I feel like I just can't do it justice in trying to describe things. I am appreciative that some photos did turn out decently and I can share them here on this blog. 

I muse:  There's no place like home, but I sure could get used to a place like this, if it just wasn't so dang expensive.