A Tale Of A Tail

From our base in Florida we set off to Clearwater beach to see some animals.

                                     

Not this animal though it was happy to pose for the camera.

We were going here!

To blog about this.. a dolphin called Winter.

Who was found in winter. You can guess when they rescued Noelle and Nicholas. 

A two month old  dolphin was found in  Mosquito Lagoon, near Cape Canaveral, Florida  caught up in a crab trap line so badly that her  tail was devoid of sufficient blood supply and she suffered irreparable  damage to her tail flukes.  After she had been cut free of the ropes, she was  transported to the  Marine Aquarium in Clearwater. Usually a young dolphin in that state has very little hope of survival. She effectively lost her tail- the main propeller for the ‘Dolphin kick’  but she pulled through and developed her own unique style of swimming.

Then, one of the vets at the centre  who had an interest in orthopaedics, thought about a prosthetic tale and the rest is history. 

And of course. Morgan Freeman, Harry Connick Jun and Kris Krissofferson all play this out in the film  Dolphin Tale.

 From the photographs I guess that a disabled young man  connects with the disabled dolphin, as an Winter gets to grip with her prosthetic tale, so the young man learns to come to tends with his own prosthesis.

 some stills from the film. 

Winter plays herself!

 The divers in the main aquarium dive dressed as superheros- the kids love it, very engaging and educational.  Then the diver gets upstaged by a manta ray.

at the back you can see a diver holding a clipboard, asking the school kids questions. Much of it was  the 'plastic is killing the oceans questions.'

 This fish looks as if he should have known the answer, but had forgotten.

 The next few pictures are of Winter lolling around in the water. The pictures are in sequence and on a  quick repeat, I think you can make out the other dolphin noseing Winter around.  The other two female dolphins rarely left her alone, often nosing her behind her midline and pushing her through the water. There was a lot of  audible communication going on, Winter talking and the others answering. I guess if I was offered a superpower, it would be understand what they were actually saying. It might have been as mundane as ' hey you, wake up, the fish is over there.' But anyone who reads Douglas Adams may think that they  were saying something far more prophetic. But it probably all was about the fish!

All the animals in the aquarium, scaled. feathered and furry have been judged by a government inspectorate as unsuitable to be returned to the wild.

   

FISH!!!!!!!!!!

The vet's office set from the film is preserved in the aquarium.

The aquarium has a rescue van and a rescue boat - it's called.... wait for it..... 'TAIL FORCE ONE'

 Caro Ramsay 15 11 2019