Marineland Dolphin Adventure

Saturday 3/31/2018
No boat travel.

Both of the dock masters here at the marina recommended we visit Marineland Dolphin Adventure facility across the street from the marina. Clark decided that since we have stayed here three times and have never seen the main attraction, it was about time we saw what they had to offer.

The marina supplied us with two complimentary passes to avoid paying General Admission entrance fees. These passes also entitled us to a discounted price on the "Behind the Seas" tour. We overslept a little so we did not get there at 9:00 when they opened as recommended, but we did not miss anything by arriving at 9:30.

We had also been told to request the 3:00 tour. When we checked in, we found that the last show of the day was scheduled for 1:00 due to a wedding being held at Marineland tonight. The "Behind the Seas" area is used by wedding parties to prepare for the wedding. We opted for the 1:00 tour.

We really had no idea what to expect. Marineland was in its "hay days" in the 1970s. After Sea World opened near Disney World, tourists lost interest in what was once the amazing phenomenon known as Marineworld. Since its inception, when it was designed and built for filming movies, the facility has morphed several times over. Over the years it has served as a research and education facility as well as a breeding and care facility for various aquatic species. The main focus today is dolphins.

This past winter when the waters around Florida got unusually cold, the facility housed five green turtles in one of the tanks. The tank is now empty because the ocean water warmed up enough for them to be released and survive. We saw other turtles - some live, most in poster form. Two living turtles are "hanging out" at Marineland because one is so old it is arthritic, and the other, a teenager, was badly injured by boat propellers and can never be released back into the wild.

Many posters at the facility explained the different types of sea turtles. One mural showed their varying sizes, so I had Clark stand next to the largest for comparison purposes. He is almost 6' tall.

While boating, we have seen a few sea turtles though I have never been able to determine which variety I am looking at. I had Clark take pictures of the various types for reference purposes.

After wandering around the turtle area, we found a Marineland volunteer who told us to head up to the dolphin exhibit where at 10:00 a "full immersion" program would be underway.  A walkway along the ocean took us to the dolphin area. Views of the facility from the walkway are shown below.

Ocean proximity
allows easy use of ocean water by the facility

"Whitney Park" - dolphin training and research area

Turtle and Shark Tanks

"Neptune" - marble statue

A volunteer, who used to teach at Idaho State, told us an interesting story about the Neptune statue. The husband / wife team that paid for its creation had differing opinions on whether he should be marble or bronze. The husband, who placed the order for the statue, ignored his wife's wishes and had it created in marble. After it was built, the wife went behind her husband's back and had it painted bronze. Today it still has some gold/brown coloring where the bronze color could not be removed.

We arrived at the dolphin tank area in plenty of time to see the full show. The display area consists of multiple interconnected tanks. I found it hard to know where to look as dolphins frolicked in multiple tanks simultaneously. The "full immersion" program took place in the central tank. A second tank to the left held dolphins participating in a little girl's birthday party.

Off to the far left another large tank held those dolphins not participating in the morning shows. To me, the ones on the far left side behaved like children pouting in "time out". They kept watching the other tanks and definitely looked like they wanted to join in all the fun.

"Can I come out and play too?"
(his "chin" is resting on the cement hoping to get a good look)

In the birthday party tank, the dolphins played catch with the party attendees. (Movie)

Although the "playing catch" and the "I want to play too" dolphins were fun to watch, our focus centered on the main activity antics. The trainers had the dolphins do jumps, chase balls, splash the paying participants, "clap" their fins, and "talk".

Full immersion program - Jump

Jump High!

Stand tall!

The Full Immersion program lasted about 30 minutes and then we were free to stroll around until the next activity time. We walked up close to the tanks to get a good look at the dolphins there. Since this is an education facility, many posters described details about dolphins lives. One fact I found interesting is that dolphins cannot sleep like humans do. Instead they rest one half of their brain at a time, at will.

Lazy-looking dolphin? Or is he resting one side of his brain?

Besides the ocean-dwelling creatures, we got to observe some birds.

This blackbird came and sat right next to us
with not a care in the world.

Sandpipers on the beach
running in and out to avoid waves

The next program took place at 11:30 where a staff member gave a 20-minute presentation on dolphin care and training. After that we walked back to our boat (across the street) to get lunch before the 1:00 tour we had paid for.

We returned just before 1:00 for the "Behind the Seas" tour. A volunteer named Joan, whom I had talked to earlier and learned worked at Cornell University before moving to Florida, led us on our tour. As it turned out, only Clark and I had signed up for the 1:00 tour, so we had a private showing.

Walking down a flight of stairs that took us to the "underbelly" of the facility, I realized that "behind the seas" actually meant "behind the tanks". The stairs took us to an exhibit area displaying a picture-presentation of the history of the facility as well as exhibits including live sea creatures.

Through our tour, we learned that an oceanarium is different than an aquarium in that different species are exhibited together in an oceanarium.

World's First Oceanarium opened in 1938.

During the tour, I was amazed to learn how the town of Marineland grew from empty marshland before Marineland, the show, opened into a thriving town / small city when the facility was in full swing. When it first opened its doors, 30,000 people swarmed in to see what it was all about. Hotels and restaurants opened in the area due to the popularity of the facility.

One restaurant that opened had a bar that looked like the hull of a ship. People "climbed on board" to order their drinks. When someone new sat down, a button could be pushed that made the bar rock like a boat at sea. I expect that surprised more than a few patrons to find the bar swaying. Today, all that remains of the Moby Dick Lounge is shown below.

No lounge behind these doors!

The town had a post office, mayor, and fire company.  No signs of any of this remain today. I found it quite sad to think of how it peaked and then crashed to bankruptcy. The original tanks stood in what is now the parking lot with the parking area located across the street. A circular tank stood 75' across, and a rectangular one measured much larger. They no longer exist. After bankruptcy was declared, a conservationist bought the area and built new tanks for research, education, and rehabilitation purposes.

The first dolphins ever to be trained were trained at Marineland. Based on their intelligent behavior, someone got the bright idea that dolphins might be trainable and hired a trainer from the Barnum and Bailey circus to come in and work with them. After a year the trainer had taught a dolphin 6 "tricks". This was the start of something big! Ripley of "Believe it or not" fame came to visit to verify that dolphins could truly perform.

After learning about the rise and fall of Marineland, we came to the movie making portion of the tour where we learned that the series Sea Hunt starring Lloyd Bridges was filmed here. Although not filmed here, the idea for the series Flipper came from Marineland. The star of the show was named after a Marineland dolphin named "Flippy". Both of these shows were favorites of mine as a young girl.

I had heard from both dock masters at the marina that the movie "Creature from the Black Lagoon" was filmed at Marineland. Based on that I did some research before visiting the center. I figured out from Google that the movie filmed here was actually "Revenge of the Creature [from the Black Lagoon]".  I saw the "Creature from the Black Lagoon" movie but neither of the two sequels. Now, knowing it was filmed at Marineland, I would like to see the "Revenge" movie but am not willing to pay $7.95 to Amazon for the pleasure of owning a copy.

Creature from the Black Lagoon

Revenge of the Creature

I also learned from Google research that Clint Eastwood's first movie role was a bit part in the "Revenge" picture. Knowing this tidbit of information came in handy during our Behind the Seas tour because the guide asked if we could guess who the 87 year old actor / director might be that had been in the movie. Clark said, "You're asking the wrong person", and I "guessed" Clint Eastwood and got a big smile for "guessing" correctly.

As part of the movie tour, we saw some old camera and film-making equipment.

Then we entered the room with the live sea creature exhibits. Joan made sure to point out what creatures might be lurking in each tank. More often than not, she referred to them by name. Finding the moray eel had come out of his hidy holes made her very happy.

Green Moray Eel
(Like the villains in Little Mermaid)

The guide pointed out that Moray Eels have bright blue eyes.

Owing to spending time with my granddaughter, I am now familiar with a few movies I would never have seen otherwise. Today I saw some sights that reminded me of watching "Finding Dory" with her. I was just about as excited as a four-year old to see a Blue Tang.

A relative of "Dory" from the film Finding Dory 

I was equally excited to see an octopus come out of hiding to greet us. I learned from watching Finding Dory that an octopus can change color to camouflage itself to match its environment. The octopus at the exhibit did just that. The guide explained that this octopus is very social. S/he came out of hiding to say hello, waved her arms at us a bit, and then climbed back into the background to "hide". She looked just the same color and texture as the coral after she sunk back down into the scenery. Amazing!

Common Octopus "Octopus Vulgaris"
Unlike Hank from Finding Dory, this octopus has all 8 legs,
but like Hank, it has three hearts.

As an oceanarium, tanks displayed those sea creatures that could share tanks without eating each other.  Besides "Dory" and "Hank", we saw a hermit crab (like "Sebastian" from Little Mermaid), sea urchins, lobster, sea cucumbers, grunt fish, sea stars (used to be called starfish), and many other sea creatures.

Our private, "Behind the Scenes", tour ended at 2:00. Clark had a couple of posters he had not read yet, and I wanted to stroll through the gift shop. After that we returned to the boat - me to blog and Clark to do travel planning.

We leave here tomorrow heading for Jacksonville and the St. Johns River area. A cold front came through with the rains yesterday, we woke this morning to temperatures in the 50s with highs in the 60s. With the ocean breeze, we wore long pants and jackets for our day at Marineland. I hope warmer weather comes back again soon.

Hard to see the sunset tonight through the clouds ...

FL: Marineland Marina

Thursday 3/29/2018
Depart: Marineland Marina 2:30
Arrive: Marineland Marina 3:30
Distance: 8.5 nm

Traveling by boat we meet people from all over the U.S. and even the world. Even so I am still surprised by some of the places people come from to boat on the east coast. I overheard someone say they had come from Alaska. After 50 years of Alaskan winters, they said they needed a change. Like many others we have met on the water, they are "all in" meaning they have no "dirt" house to go home to. They live aboard year round.

Docked at Marineland Marina, Florida
1971 53' Hatteras Power Boat

We had tied up Sunset Delight with extra lines before we left for New Jersey in preparation for predicted high winds expected to arrive while we were away. The arrangement placed the entrance to the cockpit well away from my level of comfort for stepping across. I pestered Clark to fix the problem, and he finally complied. As we adjusted the lines to make boarding easier, Clark had a look at the hull and decided that we needed to take the boat out to run water under the hull and wash off the growth clinging there.

We ate lunch and then took the boat out for a ride. As we prepared to leave, a couple of people asked us if we were sure we wanted to go out "in the wind". Clark's classic response, "What wind?" Truthfully we found no problem with wind on the ICW. However, upon our return, I found the angle of the boat as compared to the entrance to the marina quite amazing. Clark pointed the bow at an almost 45 degree angle to the entrance so that he could come straight in. He calls this "crabbing". Standing on the bow, it looked to me like we were coming in almost sideways. This maneuvering, however, was due to current not wind.

Having fulfilled Clark's wish to wash the boat's bottom, we next went to Publix to restock. On the way there we stopped at West Marine. After that it definitely felt like we were "home". Our boat life seems to revolve around those two stores.

Clark said the pickings were slim, but he did manage to capture a sunset picture for tonight's blog update.

Sunset at Marineland Marina, Florida

Friday 3/30/2018
No boat travel.
6.5 miles bike ride

When I asked Clark his plans for today, he told me that today's forecast included rain in the afternoon. Though interesting, that was not quite the answer to my question. Given the forecast, I told him I hoped to get in a bike ride before the rain came. I dilly dallied around in the morning hoping that he would join me for a ride. As lunchtime approached and he gave no indication of stopping his miscellaneous boat-related activities, I came to realize that I would be going on the bike ride alone.

I geared up and headed south on the bike path along A-1-A. With the wind in my face, I wondered how far I would get before I decided I had enough "fun" fighting the wind. I had checked Google Maps before leaving the marina and decided to head towards the state park down the road.

Along the way I passed the grounds of Marineland - the first world's first oceanarium. We plan to visit here tomorrow using the discount coupons the dock master at the marina gave us.

The scenes along the highway on the way to the park were typical of Florida beach areas. One site that did catch my eye was a port-a-potty at a construction site. It took me a few seconds to get the joke and then several agonizing minutes to remember the name of the TV show it referred to.

Someone clearly has a great sense of humor.

When I reached the park, with only an hour or so of time before the predicted rains, I did not have much time to explore, but I did take a cursory look around.

Entrance to state park

Map of park near Gift Shop

 I quickly poked my nose in to take a peak at the Formal Gardens at the park.

No bikes allowed on the path through the Formal Gardens

Azaleas - some in bloom, some already gone

Palms and more Azaleas in the Formal Gardens

I considered traveling a short way down a  trail in the park. After a look at my "Rainy Days" app, I decided the more prudent plan would be to high-tail it out of there and focus on getting back to the marina before the rains came.

No time to explore this trail today. Rain coming fast!

Having had the wind in my face for the ride to the park, I hoped for an easy ride back to the marina. That did not happen. I had a crosswind instead. Even so the ride back was easier and faster than the ride to the park. For one thing, with the cloud cover, the temperature had dropped considerably. Shortly before entering the town of Marineland, I swore I felt sprinkles hit my face and wondered if I would be wet or dry when I finally arrived back at the boat.

When I left the boat about 90 minutes earlier, the captain from the Alaskan owned New Perspective had stopped over to say hello. Instead of joining me on my bike ride, Clark pulled out chairs and the two of them sat down to chat. I wondered what Clark would be doing when I returned from my ride. I never expected him to still be talking to the same person. That was one long visit.

Though the sky was rapidly filling with dark clouds, I had managed to get back to the boat before the rain arrived. With the winds blowing the boat away from the dock, I solicited Clark's help to get my bike back on board. Ten or fifteen minutes later, the rain came, and I was thankful that I had not hung out at the park any longer than I had.

Later in the afternoon, Clark got a call from another boater here at the marina. He (Clark) had offered his help diagnosing some battery and electrical issues. Seems like wherever he goes Clark gets called on for his expertise. He headed out to work with Jed on Sea Glass around 4:00 and did not come back until almost 7:30. I ate dinner and put his on hold until he returned.

It rained on and off for the rest of the day resulting in no sunset picture for tonight.

Road Trip to NJ and CT

3/19/2018 to 3/28/2018
No boat travel.

We left the boat in Marineland, Florida for a road trip to New Jersey. Renting a car in Marineland proved inconvenient since the nearest agency is located about 20 miles away from the marina. Having packed all but the cold food the night before, we picked up the car Monday morning and were finally on the road to New Jersey by 11:30.

Since we have traveled the Florida-to-New Jersey route by car previously, the trip was mostly familiar. We did see one noteworthy site however.

Clark dubbed this bridge near Jacksonville, Florida
"the bowtie bridge"

Weather reports for a trip to New Jersey proved to be worse than dismal. Planning this trip for the end of March, we hoped to avoid major snowstorms (or any snow for that matter). Instead we found ourselves racing a Nor'easter to our hometown of Rumson, New Jersey.

Given the forecast of heavy snow, we decided to drive longer hours than on prior trips home with the hope of arriving in New Jersey before the storm. Clark did all the driving. We stopped for dinner in South Carolina and then continued driving until we reached Emporia, Virginia. We checked into a hotel at 10:00.

We left at 9:30 the next morning to continue our drive. With the exception of stopping for fuel, Clark once again drove non-stop. The drive was dreadful. We had rain and "mixed precipitation" for the whole ride. We watched the temperature drop as we drove, and it eventually hit the dreaded 32 degree mark. Mile after mile we could see the southbound traffic backed up and not moving. The reason ... accidents!

We saw one overturned car and numerous others that had been involved in accidents. Many of these were in bad shape such as those with all the glass knocked out of the windows. Right after we passed one accident, we saw another less than a 1/2 mile down the road - probably caused by the accident we had just seen. We worried about the drivers on the road with us who did not seem to want to slow down for the icy conditions.

After a grueling drive, we finally arrived near home around 5:00. Although I had brought breakfast and lunch items in the car with us, I reminded Clark that we had no food in the house for dinner and suggested / begged him to stop at a place called Delicious Orchards where I could buy enough essentials to make us dinner when we arrived home. After a quick roundup of fresh vegetables, a pre-cooked chicken, and a frozen pie crust, we concluded our drive and arrived home where I put together a scrumptious chicken pot pie for the two of us.

Having been away from home for several months, we found a few annoying plumbing problems which Clark said resulted from dried out seals. The sink in our master bedroom bathroom dripped incessantly, and the toilet repeatedly refilled itself every few seconds due to a leaky seal. We could do nothing about the leaky sink, but we could turn off the water to the toilet to stop the repeated "flushing" noise. Clearly we would need to make a trip to a plumbing parts store as soon as possible.

With New Jersey declaring a "State of Emergency" for Wednesday's predicted weather, we would not be going anywhere for a couple of days. Expecting the worst, we waited for the stormy weather to begin.

First snow appears in Rumson

The storm decided not to arrive as soon as expected, and we had no snow accumulations until Wednesday evening. Meanwhile, businesses and schools had closed for the day, and only essential vehicles were supposed to be out on the roads. While we slept Wednesday night, however, the snow made its appearance. We woke Thursday morning to a driveway covered in snow and plowed in at the end by the road-clearing equipment.

Looking at our driveway
(somewhere under all that snow)

Armed and Ready to Tackle the Snow

It took just about an hour working together to clear the snow from the driveway. Had we been able to use the snowblower in the garage, we might have finished earlier. Since we had no gas in the snowblower, and none to put in the snowblower, manual labor proved our only option for snow removal. (Clark refused to use a snow-removal service.) Fortunate for us, we only got about 5" or 6" of snow. Neighboring towns slightly further away from our location near the coast received a foot or so of wet, heavy snow.

Clean driveway

As we approached the end of the driveway clearing activity, Clark left me to finish the job while he moved to the backyard to shovel his way down to the dock. His view was a lot prettier than the one I had in the front yard.

Snowy creek in Rumson, New Jersey

After digging ourselves out, we headed out to do the errands that had been delayed by the storm. Besides buying plumbing parts, we had to visit the NJ Motor Vehicle Commission to renew our driver's licenses. Both Clark and mine would expire at the end of April, and we had to appear in person. Due to the bad weather, the DMV was understaffed and extra busy since people whose schools / businesses were closed for the day decided it was the perfect time to get licenses renewed or issued.

New Jersey required 6 points of identification for the license renewal. We received the list of acceptable documents in the mail with the application for renewal, so that we could come prepared. I came to the DMV with my passport, an ATM card, and my insurance card. Clark came with two, heavy bags full of papers to be sure that he would have the 6 required points. I tried to get him to bring only what was needed but failed miserably.

Friday, I had lunch plans with close friends. I made Clark lunch and headed off  to meet my friends. When I got home several hours later, I found the bathroom torn apart, and Clark "chomping at the bit" to go to the plumbing store to buy a new sink fixture having failed to replace the part he bought the day before. The old part could not be extracted no matter what Clark tried. We found a replacement faucet at the store, brought it home, and Clark labored to put the sink back together.

Saturday, we drove to Connecticut to visit our son Chris, his wife Heather, and our granddaughter Lily. Lily smiled for me and gave me a hug, but her greeting for me was nothing like the one she gave Clark. For the rest of our visit, she hung around Clark, and if he disappeared even briefly, she wanted to know where "Kark" had gone.

Lily and her buddy Papa "Kark"
watching phone videos together.

Lily with her soccer ball
(playing ball with Clark / "Kark")

We left Lily and her parents (Chris and Heather) Sunday morning. Instead of heading straight back to New Jersey, however, we headed to the once-a-year clearance sale being held by the Defender Outlet Store that sells marine supplies. This excursion took us an hour in the wrong direction but proved well worth the detour.

When we arrived at the Defender Outlet Store, we could not believe the cars. They were parked on both sides down the full length of the drive into the parking lot. An attendant said we could park at the entrance or take our chances on finding a spot further along the way. We pulled into the spot he indicated and "hoofed it" down the drive to the store.

Defender Outlet Store

Inside the store was no better than the parking lot. Moving down aisles proved nearly impossible at times with so many shoppers in the way. Although we had no shopping list perse, we managed to fill up our shopping cart with all sorts of "goodies".

Aisles at Defender
(does not reflect the crowds found  in the aisles)

Four hours after we got to the outlet, we had to leave because the outlet closed at 3:00, and we had managed to stay until closing time. We came away with bags full of projects for Clark to work on!

Since we stayed in Connecticut until late afternoon, we were traveling the Garden State Parkway at sunset time. Since Clark drove, he assigned me the job of taking the picture out the passenger side window at 65 mph.

Sunset on the NJ GSP

Monday we completed the last of the tasks we had set for ourselves in New Jersey. We both visited the dentist office for our semi-annual appointments ( a couple of months late). With that behind us we decided to pack with plans to hit the road early Tuesday morning to make our way back to Florida.

We managed to make it as far as North Carolina the first night. Once again we stopped for dinner and then continued until 10:00 before calling it a night. On the road the next day we saw some novel sights.

Fuel stop in NC

Carolina Giant Tire Road Service Truck

Truly Giant Tires!

 We made great time through North Carolina, but South Carolina was not so kind.

Traffic in SC on 95S

Wherever we found a road merging with 95, we found stopped traffic. The red line on Google maps went on for miles and miles with no bypass. We were stuck. When we reached Jacksonville, we hit more traffic troubles. Unfortunately, our timing was less than ideal. We came upon Jacksonville just in time for 5:00 rush-hour traffic. Route 295 bypass was so clogged with cars, Google Maps redirected us west to pick up 95 which surprisingly proved much better.

We had to pass by St. Augustine to arrive at Marineland where the boat is docked. On the way by we decided that since we had to eat somewhere, we might as well eat in St. Augustine. As we drove from New Jersey, we shed layers of clothes. By the time we reached St. Augustine, we had whittled it down from winter coats to no coat at all.

Enjoying the warmer weather in Florida

We played the tourist and took some pictures while we made our way to the restaurant we planned to patronize.

Castillo de San Marco

Fort

Our first introduction to Meehan's pub was to retrieve a forgotten coat from there for Ralph on Mazel Tug. Since then we have returned a couple of times, since we found we enjoyed the pub fare.

Meehan's Irish Pub for dinner

Inside Meehan's Pub

After dinner we decided to visit the city docks. Clark had looked at AGLCA "meets" and seen that folks we met at Faro Blanco, Seaquest, were currently docked there. When we go to the docks, we found Seaquest but no one was aboard. However, docked in the next space over, we found Miss Norma, whom we had met in Fort Myers.

Talking to Raime and Tim on Miss Norma, we found that Ned Pepper was also docked nearby, but no one was home there either. Raime said that the boat next to their's named Chemistry is also a looper boat (one we had not seen before). We chatted with them for a while and then headed back towards the car to finish the trip to the boat. On the way out of the marina, Clark took a picture of a small cruise ship docked there that includes a view of some of the storm-damaged and currently unusable docks at the marina.

Empty docks in foreground are not usable
due to damage from hurricane Irma

We finally arrived at the boat at 10:00, dragged all our bags and such from the car to the boat, stowed our gear, and called it a night! We both agree that we are happy to be back on board!