Dolphin Tour

This weekend, while we were at a great seafood restaurant in Gulf Shores, we found a flier that advertised dolphin tours. I grabbed my phone and looked up the prices on their website, and finding them to be affordable, we decided to give it a try. We spent hours and hours on the beach on Saturday, so around 2:00p.m. I was ready for a shower and a nap. My husband then called the dolphin tour and got us a reservation for the 4:00p.m. tour. I was excited until I realized it was 3:30 and the boat we were to board was in Orange Beach. 

We raced out of our hotel and headed to Orange Beach. Neither of us had our phones or an address to the place and pretty soon 4:00 came and went. I was so sad:( I wanted to see dolphins! We decided to keep looking for it and ended up in Florida. We saw some very unusual things along the Alabama/Florida state line as well. 

This was the name of a local newspaper. 

We quickly realized that this was not the place for us!

This is when we realized we had gone too far. 

My husband decided to take me out for Dippin Dots since it was clear we had missed the boat. We asked the ice cream lady if she knew where the place was, but she had no idea either. While we were enjoying our ice cream of the future, we decided to keep looking so we would know where it was for the next day and could make another reservation. Next we ended up at an arcade to ask for directions. We looked in their phone book, got an address, and programmed it into our GPS. It directed us inland. We should have known that we were going the wrong way. We stopped at a scuba shop and asked again, and this time we were given good directions. It was 5:45 and we were back in Gulf Shores. The boat was going out for it's final voyage of the day at 6:00. So, hubby thought we could make it. We arrived at about 3 or 4 after 6:00. This was our view as we got to the dock. 

Yes, that is our boat. Leaving. 

Thankfully, the lady that was booking the voyages whistled and asked if they would come back for us. They agreed and we had to jump onto the boat. An onlooker told my husband that he should be thankful that I was with him, because they wouldn't have come back for a man. We boarded the boat and thanked the kind captain for retrieving us. We took the only seats left which were right in front. Turns out, we had the best seats on the boat. 

Our perfect seat!

As we left the dock and pulled into the bay, I was anxious to see the dolphins! We passed some amazing homes built along the water including Dale Earnhart, Jr.'s house, or so the captain said. Then we passed this lovely item:

AaAAarggg! It's a pirate ship! 

Then it was off to the dolphins. I was wondering how they could guarantee dolphin sightings. They go out and find shrimp boats who are dragging their nets. The dolphins stick close to the boats looking for some snacks, and if they are lucky the people on the shrimp boats will feed them.

What most of my pictures looked like. The dolphins we so fast! My camera couldn't keep up. 

Got one! 

See the shrimp boat? 

Sadly, this is the best picture I got. 

 After we viewed these dolphins for about 20 minutes, the captain decided to take us out into the gulf to watch the sunset. It was gorgeous! My absolute favorite part of the tour was when we sailed under the bridge and headed into the gulf. The waves were huge and the boat was going really fast. I felt like we were airborne and I was standing up, holding the railing. It was amazing.

 After snapping these last few pictures, my camera batteries died. But we were headed back to dock. It was incredibly windy on the boat and sailing into the gulf only made it seem windier. Check out this after photo of my hair:)

That's what 2 hours on a boat will do to ya! 

If you are ever in Gulf Shores, I highly recommend that you find a dolphin tour. This was one of the best parts of the trip. I feel like we really got our money's worth out of the trip. As we got off the boat, there were a lot of fishermen bringing in their catch and having it cleaned right in front of us...needless to say, we didn't have seafood for dinner:)