The High Point of the Day...

There is no doubt that the high point for each of us was the time we spent near the killer whales. Ashlynn dreams of being an orca trainer, so watching the show from a vantage point just to the side of the main stage was truly special.

After the show, we got to spend about 20 minutes speaking to this trainer, who’s originally a dancer from Portugal. Due to several accidents at other marine parks, the trainers are no longer allowed in the water with the orcas, which he explained creates another series of risks for humans now that the animals are no longer used to that close human contact. 

Jimmy got come very cool shots from this spot. Sadly, the whales were performing for very small crowds as the threatening rain must have scared folks away.

The Shows...

Pardon me for skipping out of order... After our ;private tour was over, we grabbed some lunch and watched the seal, dolphin and killer whale shows. Marineland is relatively small and wouldn’t have taken all day if we hadn’t done the special tour, but the shows were quite good.

I especially liked this unique stunt with the dolphins.

Meeting a Seal...

The next stop on our tour was to meet a seal. While us girls had been kissed by a seal in Curacao, this was actually our first chance to pet a seal. First we each felt her flipper, then petted her soft coat.

More Dolphin Time...

As you can see, we often looked quite silly during this encounter, but it was fun.

I think this dolphin especially enjoyed getting to splash us near the end of our time together.

Meeting the Dolphins...

Since it is illegal for tourists to swim with dolphins in France, our time with the dolphins was very different than our experience at Sea World several years ago. Rather than put on wet suits, we were given fisherman’s waders to put over our clothes for our 30 minutes in the dolphin tank. We gave commands for the dolphins to wave, spin and jump.

In addition to giving commands, we got to pet the dolphins.

An Early Morning...

We got up early on that Monday morning to head to Marineland for a 9 a.m. appointment for a behind-the-scenes tour. We hadn’t used the car since we’d arrived Friday night and were unhappy when we discovered that the battery was dead after we’d accidentally left a map light on. Luckily Port Grimaud is a gated community; not only did the guard speak English, but he was really helpful. He had no luck giving us a jump start with the security vehicle, but didn’t give up and was successful when he tried his own car.

We arrived a few minutes late, but it turned out to actually be our lucky day as no one else had signed up so we had a private tour which started before the park opened for the day. We began with a croissant breakfast sitting next to the penguin exhibit, then walked around the park with a trainer to visit the various animals.

Geocaching in Port Grimaud...

There’s only one geocache in Port Grimaud proper. It was actually fairly easy to find.

However, it wasn’t so easy to be inconspicuous while searching as this air conditioner was in plain site behind a shop.