Dolphins are pure evil. I base this statement on personal experience since I was nearly killed by one (or several).
Here’s the scenario: my friends and I rented a pontoon boat to cruise out to the jetties in the Gulf of Mexico off of Panama City Beach. There were about 13 of us on the boat and because I was the only one licensed to drive, I was at the wheel.
As a short aside, we were all in the USAF and to rent a boat from the base marina, I had to take a class and get a license.
There is a stretch of about a mile on this trip in which you can not see any shore. It is a little weird to see nothing but water in all the directions, but I had done this several times and I had gotten used to it.
On one fateful day, while navigating this stretch of water, I happened to see a dolphin jump out of the water behind our boat. Soon several more became visible and it became clear that we were getting a dolphin escort.
I had seen shows where people had swam with dolphins. I had heard stories of how intelligent and good natured dolphins are. I wanted to swim with the dolphins. Without another thought, I jumped overboard (while the boat was moving) eager to be greeted by a pod of my new mammalian friends.
My first “greeting” was terrifying. A huge breast exploded from the water a mere few feet from where I bobbed helplessly. It came out of the water with its mouth gaped and I could see what seemed like hundreds of sharp teeth that were designed to rip flesh apart. As its whole body emerged, I was stunned by the shear size of this creature. It was easily 15 feet long and had to weigh over three hundred pounds. This was not Flipper. This was not a nice light blue. This thing did not want to be my friend. It was black and was covered in scars. It had obviously been in many fights for its life. And since it appeared before me, this was the gladiator that was undefeated. I would have no chance against one of these if it decided that I would make a good afternoon snack. At this point I looked down – the waters were crystal clear and I could make out several shadows circling beneath me. They were no doubt plotting my demise.
It was at this point that I realized the folly of my actions. My mind quickly made an analogy between wolves and dogs. Yes, dogs are friendly and loyal, but their undomesticated brothers, the wolves, would sooner rip your face off than look at you.
These were not the friendly creatures I had seen at Sea World or on TV. These were killing machines. They did not rely on humans to feed them and did not know that I meant them no harm. It was at this point that I panicked. If they did decide to attack me, there was nothing I could do about it. To make matters worse, I looked up at the boat. It was still chugging along at the same speed and course that I left it when I departed. It was at least a hundred yards away and apparently no one had yet noticed my absence. I was floating in the middle of the ocean with no companions but the ones that were deciding how they would punish my intrusion to their home.
After what seemed like hours, the boat did finally come back. I was terrified and shaking. I tried to explain how close I had come to my demise by those muderous dolphins. This, of course, was received with thuderous laughter and ridicule. That is when the dolphins’ motivation became obvious.
They knew that no one would believe my story. They were obviously not hungry and/or they decided that joy they would receive by causing the ridicule I would get in subsequent years would far outwiegh the joy of simply eating me. They were right.
) Protection act.
