Rare day in the sun

I don’t get out much here. I don’t like being in the hot sun during the day, I’m usually lugging two kids around, and then there is the issue of the rising cost of gas. There’s just not much fun in it for me. I thought when Grandma was here we’d do Sea Life Park, out on the Eastern side of the island, around Hawaii Kai into Waimanalu, but she didn’t show much interest. So I decided to give the kids a break and get out of the house, so off we went yesterday.

We made it in time for the Dolphin Show. I’d read online that they only do one dolphin show a day (don’t know why…) so I made a point to get there for it. The Dolphin Cove is really small, but, oh what a view! From certain vantage points it seems like the park is right on the island’s edge, but a freeway actually runs between. You can even see the Makapu’u Lighthouse.

The star of the show is the whalphin (or wolphin). They call it the “world famous whalphin” but I have a few issues with that! I’d never heard of it and I can’t find a single mention of it – let alone picture - on the website. Turns out it’s not a monster after all; my untrained eye saw a cute creature that just looks bigger and darker than a normal dolphin but had a whale’s tail. It was an “accidental breeding” between a dolphin and a “false whale.” I wish I could tell you more but I don’t get it myself. All I took from it was that somebody didn’t think they’d mate and left ‘em in a tank together. Oops. Mammals will be mammals after all. I sure hope they’re not hiding some freak purtle (penguin and turtle mix, not shown below) in fear that they will have their zoo accreditation taken away!

Noel is currently in Alaska and spent a good chunk of time earlier this week on a boat spotting whales and trying to get the “fluke” shot. Well, when you have a trained whalphin, they do this for about 5-10 seconds, allowing one enough time to: drop the hand of your three year old who was playing with the cove’s rope they asked you not to play with, stop rocking the stroller of your crying 9 month old, pick up your camera, point, and shoot. Ahh, captivity.

Robbie didn’t seem all that into it while we were there. In fact, I thought he watched the prop boat in the middle of the dolphin cove more than the actual spinning dolphins. But when we got home, he asked to see the dolphins again, and later in the backyard was jumping around. I asked if he was jumping like the dolphins and he said, “Yes!” So shame on me for thinking he didn’t get much out of the day. Sadly, we won’t be going back very often as even with the kama ‘aina rates, it cost the three of us $35 plus $4 parking for our 4 hour excursion.