Dancing Dolphins!

Today I went on a kayak trip organized by the wonderful, welcoming and kind people who work at the International Student Services Union. About 20 students from all over the world (Singapore, Philippines, China, Malaysia, Germany, Iceland, Spain, India, the US and 3 Canadians) went to Port Adelaide and paddled the Port River, an inlet with mangroves inhabited by heron, gulls, pelicans, terns and cormorants. There's also a ship graveyard with the hulls of several ships including the one in the background left there.

And there were dolphins! About 30 dolphins of all ages live there and gave us a show. Before we even entered the water we could see a couple of dolphins swimming together. Suddenly a female named Tallulah did a ‘tail walk’ along the shoreline, right in front of us. Very few dolphins do this in the wild, but about 30 years ago a dolphin from this sanctuary who mistakenly landed in captivity learned how and passed it on to her offspring. As you saw in my earlier blog, dolphins are very social animals. Later on we paddled over to where they were feeding. Not only did they come up to the boats but they turned on their backs and to our amazement, swam under us. Most of the group had never paddled before, let alone seen a dolphin, including my paddle partner who is from Bangledesh.

Check out this website for more images: http://www.adventurekayak.com.au/dolphin.html