As Sunday came this morning, so did packing up and checking out again. We said goodbye to the lovely Wicker House and the jungle room which had been our home for the last three nights and made our way off of Key West.
We drove for about an hour and a half back through some of the Key islands until we got to Islamorada. We had one main reason for stopping on this Key, as today is the day we swam with dolphins!
We spent four hours in a fab place called "Theater of the Sea", which was an outdoor park and home to various animals and sea life. Once inside we looked around the gardens and lakes and saw things like massive sea turtles, parrots, sharks, alligators and crocodiles, sea lions and of course dolphins. 
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| A turtle with a life vest! How cute! |
After enjoying an afternoon walking around and watching the various shows and sharks being fed (all included in the entry fee) we decided to take the park up on its offer to pay extra for swimming with the dolphins or sealions. We opted for swimming with the dolphins - I've never been someone who's dream it was to do this and would go so far as to say I was slightly blase about the whole thing but now soooo glad we did it.
The dolphin Stormy was huge and I was slightly wary at first while entering the lagoon, doesn't help that a member of the park staff are filming you every moment with the dolphin so I strain a false smile politely at the camera while clenching my nervous jaw. 
And jaw or "Jaws" is what's going through my mind at this point while I slowly get into the water - and those famous haunting two notes enter my brain "dum dum, dum dum," I literally had to stop myself from screaming "get outta the water, get outta the water"!
Okay, panic over, we're in the lagoon and Stormy is behaving himself and just gently bobbing, close up he is even cuter and I am not put off by his staring eyes - I'm sure he could sense my slight nervousness. The next half an hour was real fun, we got to swim, stroke, play, kiss and hug the dolphin. 
My fave bit was the hug, I stood shoulder high in the water put my arms out bent so my fingers were touching with a gap between my arms and body and then Stormy swam underwater and popped up in between my arms, I hugged him so tight as now we had a bond and I was no longer afraid....even though having this 1,000 pound animal and it's eye next to mine was soooo surreal. We bought the dvd and cd of photos to always remember this amazing experience we had today, those alone cost more than our hotel tonight but like Oli said we'll probaly never do it again and want to have all the visual memories we can:-)
We were the last people in the park today, the photographer and developing crew got chatting to us (never a quick chat once people ask where we're from and how long are we on holiday for). One guy, I forget his name, said he always wanted to visit London because of his love for the late comedian Benny Hill. He told us all about his love for British comedies, his favourites being Fawlty Towers and Keeping Up Appearances, I suggested he watch Only Fools and Horses - I gave him a quick impersonation of Del Boy and he laughed really hard and got me to write the name of the show down on a piece of paper and said he would be looking for it on his computer tonight!
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| The strangest roadside attraction to date! |
After the park we drove an hour and half or so and stopped for dinner at about 7pm at Hog Heaven, a proper local joint - I'm not sure if I imagined it or not but I definitely felt everyone looked at us when we entered but soon went back to their chatting. It overlooked a harbour and was a perfect way to end the evening. We are now in Key Largo which is the island nearest to the bottom of Florida. We plan on staying here for two nights as it's on the Key Largo Marina and there seems to be some fun stuff here to check out tomorrow. Not sure if this island will rival Key West but so far here so good:-)
J&O
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