Dolphins for my birthday | Angelsea Urban

I was the girl in 8th grade with my walls adorned with dolphin pictures. I had my own personal Wyland Gallery of posters, binders, and trapper keepers. I saw every marine mammal movie and I dreamed of a career at Sea World where I would swim all day with dolphins, holding on their fin as they took me all around the pool. And we laughed (cuz ya know, dolphins can laugh).  It was either that or I was dreaming of being a fighter pilot in the airforce, but then I realized that those people actually go to war and drop bombs and stuff and then it didn’t seem as fun. My first car was named Flipper. My 1986 burgundy Ford Escort. I referred to it as Flipper so much, when it broke down (as it did just about every week), my family would ask, “How’s Flipper, is he gonna be ok?”

Needless to say, I was a big fan of dolphins. When I had the chance to actually swim with them once, I passed. I couldn’t justify spending $300 to stand in the water while they jumped over me. That was not at all how it looked in my fantasy, so I’d rather wait.

So this past Saturday we celebrated my birthday a little early as this weekend I have 2 weddings and then I’ll be on my way to Georgia to participate and teach at the Pursuit 31 Conference.  Steve surprised me by taking me to Cape May, a place we absolutely adore and try to visit as often as we can. We started off in Cold Springs Village, where I found a wagon (below) with an interesting surprise (read that here).

A few locations later, Steve sprung another surprise on me: “We’re going on a Dolphin Watching Sunset Dinner Cruise”. Whaaaaat?  Not only was I surprised that we’ve been to Cape May a billion times and I never knew this was available, but the poor guy hasn’t had the best of luck in trying to surprise me. Luckily he didn’t tell the kids either. That secret probably would have lasted about 2 minutes. They were SUPER excited to see dolphins too. For a while anyway…Greyson didn’t exactly like the SUPER choppy waves when the engine was turned off in the ocean. Driving the boat, YES, bopping around in the water while hanging onto the boat for dear life… not so much. 🙂

Lucky for us, the super choppy waves were a dolphin sighting gold mine. They LOVED surfing in them and I couldn’t take pictures fast enough. The captain said we probably saw 30-50. I wasn’t counting but I believe it. Instead I was totally crying. I get you Hootie and the Blowfish. I totally get you.