Dolphin Encounter

It's wonderful to live in an area where people pay to come on vacation.  We are on vacation everyday!  It rang true again the other night when a group of fun friends decided to go kayaking on St. Andrews Bay launching from the St. Andrews Marina.  

This is a convenient spot for us to launch from, The Canoe Shop is right across the street and rents kayaks for those that don't own one.  Parking is easy and there is a small sandy beach great for loading the boats and launching as a group.

The sun soon begins to set illuminating the sky with shades of orange and pink with dark shadows of clouds along the horizon simulating a mountain range with majestic peaks.  It was another fantastic sunset, no two being exactly alike. 

As we headed east toward the rising moon, we realized that maybe our plans should have been reversed, paddle towards the sunset going west then return heading east towards the moon.  We'll switch directions next time.

After watching the moon rise, we started back towards the marina in the darkness.  The water calms down after sunset making the trip back smoother and we are enjoying having the bay to ourselves.  At least so we thought, about that time I catch movement out of the corner of my eye and hear a pffffhhh sound.  The light from the moon is more than enough to scan the surface of the bay but nothing is there.  After a few minutes I begin paddling again and catch up to the group.  Again I hear the sound but this time it is slightly in front of me and I see a dolphin roll in the water between myself and another kayak.  The dolpin would disappear each time I stopped so when he reappeared this time I continued paddling with a steady pace with my fellow paddler.  It was awesome knowing that the dolphin was choosing to swim with us at our pace, much slower than he was capable of swimming.   After a fair distance he left as quietly as he appeared and we paddled on.

The dolphin experience took this moonlit trip from awesome to WOW!  One of those experiences you hope for on a vacation but we get in our own backyard.