The late Sean Lock had a very short bucket list. Let’s hope he whittled the 2 things off the list in the last few years of his life…
He wanted to ‘swim with dolphins’ and ‘kick a pigeon’. I smirked to myself when I walked through Plaça Reial in Barcelona to be greeted by thousands of pigeons, I thought of Sean and how he ruined a romantic weekend in Venice staying up half of the night trying to kick various pigeons in Piazza San Marco ..
Coincidentally I don’t need to stick swim with dolphins on my own bucket list because I’ve already had the pleasure. I’d describe myself as an avid traveller and during an extended trip to Venezuela my girlfriend and I agreed the highlight of the trip would be a sighting of a Boto (they’re freshwater dolphins which are pink in colour) or two in a dugout canoe on the Orinoco basin. The canoe had seen better days and was letting in water..
All was going well, no sightings just the odd Caiman or two. Then it happened, a very friendly Boto approached the canoe from the rear and touched the rear of the boat with her nose. This startled my girlfriend to such an extent she shot to her feet and then lost her footing. In my futile attempt to stop her falling in, the canoe capsized throwing the two of us into the water along with tour guide. To be honest the opportunity to ‘swim with dolphins’ was far from my thoughts. The water was piranha infested and there was a large looking Caiman on the other side of the riverbank. Fortunately, we swam ashore without being eaten alive. The only real distraction was our skipper cursing very loudly in Spanish.
We got back in the canoe, soaking wet, agreeing that our swim with dolphins hadn’t quite gone to plan…
Moral of the story, I could have chosen to embellish this event to suit the romantic conventional story of ‘swimming with dolphins’, I pride myself in being authentic and transparent in how I operate so you got the above. If you need to strike the right balance of advertising your products and services both legally and ethically, DM me I can help…
