Saturday, April 6, 2016

Telemar Bay Marina is next to a swing bridge that opens “on demand,” which means it will open whenever a boat requests it. Many bridges, especially if on a busy street, open on schedules, for instance on the hour and half hour, or on the quarter and three-quarter hours. Though many bridges raise, a swing bridge turns horizontally on a hub in the center of the channel resulting in the bridge being perpendicular to the road and parallel to, and in the middle of, the channel.

The dockmaster at Telemar Bay was great, full of information and a generally nice guy. He mentioned that Telemar Bay is where the dolphins come to play, though we didn’t see any that afternoon or evening. We walked across this barrier island to the ocean side (1.3 miles) to a restaurant he recommended for dinner, The Hula Moon Tiki Grill, which was great!

The next morning, as the sun shone golden on the bay around 7:30am, Sue noticed a couple groups of dolphins! Some seemed to be swimming differently than usual, staying longer near the surface skimming the top of the water instead of arcing into the air. There seemed to be a lot of splashing and commotion around one area that started and stopped a few times. Then there was more unusual slow paced swimming near the surface but not to breathe – just the dorsal fin was showing. Several minutes later, we both saw what looked like a little dolphin tossed into the air! We realized that we may have witnessed a baby dolphin being born, granted from a distance and only seeing splashes on top of the water. When we visited the Dolphin Research Center in Marathon, they mentioned that after giving birth, a mother dolphin will swim alongside and under her baby, or may push it up to the surface or even toss the baby into the air to remind it to breathe. (It happened again a few minutes later - we even caught that one in a picture!) The baby also swims under the mom in her slipstream which makes it easier to to nurse, though only for 5-10 seconds at a time. Then we also saw a tiny dolphin swimming right next to the mom as she would barely raise her dorsal fin above the water's surface and it was right next to her. It is really difficult to see in the photos, but it was amazing to see in person! This was so exciting - a fantastic way to start the day!