A dolphin called Tilly

Here is a video clip of our boat ride to Anthony's Key

Dolphin behavior, in particular how they communicate with each other is studied on the island at the Roatan Institute for Marine Sciences (see National Geographic magazine May 2015 for an article on the research there).

We waded out into warm clear water above waist height to meet our trainer. He would have one dolphin with him. Her name was Tilly and she was two years old. A Bottlenose dolphin.

Using a whistle and hand signals the trainer tells Tilly what to do and she responds immediately.
Here she poses with a couple of tourists.

Tilly was warm and very smooth to the touch, befitting an animal that can swim at 20 mph underwater

 The trainer has a cooler full of small fish to reward Tilly with after she obeys his commands

Everyone got a kiss from Tilly

After all the close contact maneuvers we were allowed to go ashore to get our cameras so that we could get shots of Tilly performing tricks on the water. I brought my point and shoot Canon and my camcorder out into the water.

 After each trick- a reward...

 The dolphins are within a caged pen but once a day they are allowed out into the open sea for an hour-and they always return when told to, as they love the free fish that they don't have to catch!

During the time we were with Tilly her mother, who was swimming free in the pen and not engaged in a show, would come along occasionally to visit her.

New instructions for Tilly... go stand on your tail and swim backwards with another dolphin.

All too soon our hour in the water was up and we were taking the boat back to the landing dock where our bus waited to take us back to the ship. We had to visit the Gift Shop to buy the digital photos that had been taken with Tilly.

Here's the video I took in the water