Our port today was Cozumel, Mexico! It was the day I had been looking forward to our whole trip - swimming with dolphins!  We did an excursion called "Push, Pull, Swim".  I'm so glad we waited until Cozumel to do this.  We took a taxi from the port to Chankanaab National Park.  This is a beautiful conservation area located in the heart of the island.

Our dolphin experience took place in a big, beautiful fenced off area of the beach.  The water was the most beautiful we had seen so far.  It was so clear, with TONS of colorful fish swimming everywhere.  The dolphins had tons of room to swim around, and we were told there were about 30 of them out there.  We got to meet several of them during our experience.

Here we are before going in to meet the dolphins...

We walked out onto a dock and then down to stand on bench that kept us suspended in waist deep water.

To begin with, the trainer had dolphins swim slowly in front of us so we could touch them.

Can you tell how excited we were to actually be doing this?  It was pure joy for all of us.  Mark was our photographer.  He had done something similar a few months before when he went with his sister and her family to pick up his nephew, Tyson, from his mission in Mexico - so he had elected to watch and photograph the experience.

The trainer had the dolphins do some jumps and flips for us.

Then Bryan got to "hold" a dolphin.  He swam away from the bench into the deep water, then the dolphin swam in front of him.  Bryan had his arms in fron of him, palms up, and the dolphin swam right onto his arms and lay there for around 10 seconds.  So fun!!

Next it was Colton's turn...

Then it was Colton and then Bryan's turn to have the dolphin give them a ride.  They swam out about 100 feet.  Colton put out his right arm straight on the water.  The dolphin swam around behind him, flipped over on his back, then came right under that right arm and waited for Colton to grab both his left and right pectoral fins.  Then Colton just held on tight, laying on the dolphins belly, while the dolphin gave him a ride all the way back to the bench.  The look on each of our faces as we got to do this was just complete amazement that we were getting to experience this!

Morgan got to "hold" a dolphin next...

Then Kyle...

Next it was Morgan and Kyle's turn to be pulled by a dolphin...

You can tell by the wake that the dolphins swam pretty fast!

We each had a turn with a dolphin where we put out our hand up high, and the dolphin would come up an hold itself up to touch it's nose to our hand.  This was Colton's turn...

Then the dolphin "shook hands" with it's pectoral fins...

...and then gave him a kiss!

My turn...

...holding the dolphin in my arms...

Kyle's turn...

Here was my turn to ride a dolphin across the lagoon...

Bryan's turn...

Morgan's turn...

Now THIS was quite the ride!  We again each swam out quite aways from the bench with a boogie board.  Then we were told to flex our feet and hold on tight to the board, keeping the nose up.  A dolphin swam around behind us, put it's nose to our feet, then pushed us FAST through the water back to the bench.  It was SO FUN!

Colton went first...

...then Kyle...

...then Bryan...

...and Morgan (love her face here!)...

Mark didn't get a picture of each of us doing each thing, but we all got to experience everything.  It was something none of us will EVER forget!

Here we are doing training signals for one of our dolphins.  We were telling it to clap, which it did!

After our dolphin excursion we walked down the beach to a beautiful snorkeling area with tons of beautiful coral reefs.  We were in water 25-30 feet deep, but it was so clear, it didn't seem like that far down.  We spent the next two hours out there just swimming around with all kinds of different colorful fish swimming right by our masks.  We could reach out and touch them before they swam away.  We saw lobsters and stingrays too.  Mark, Bryan, and I swam through a short underwater cave.  We had fun clearing the pressure from our ears so we could swim down to the bottom.  Kyle stayed with us through the whole thing!  He is amazing!  He never got tired and was having so much fun.

After leaving the lagoon, we walked through the jungle of the park to a mayan village they had created.  We were offered some homemade tortillas, fresh off the fire.  The kids enjoyed holding this chick...

This was a REALLY fun day!!