Wow what a day. I got up at my usual time and instead of having tea went straight to check on Lizzie, the dolphin who was due to give birth. She was having strong contractions and was dilated plus she was showing a lot of blood. After having missed Daniella giving birth yesterday I decided I wasn’t taking any chances, so pulled up a chair (together with lots of others) and settled in for the duration. The time was 09.00 and already the sun was quite strong. Stephanie, the co-owner of the Bamboo coffee shop, joined me. I persuaded her to stay as she had seen the whole sorry event yesterday and had been quite traumatised by it.

Roger brought us sun screen and water and left us happily chatting and watching Lizzie. By 10 am we were the only two left. We sat and watched until at 12.45, after much jumping, twisting and diving, the baby’s tail suddenly appeared.

I texted Roger, who kindly went and bought lunch for us as we waited.

Luckily he was still with us at 3.28 when with a gush of blood, Lizzie’s baby popped out into the water.

Having given birth before, Lizzie is an experienced mum and it was lovely watching her teach her baby to swim and more importantly breathe. I have decided he is a boy as he was so long in coming out (though it is likely to be a while before this is confirmed). He is so cute and cuddly and his little dorsal fin is flopped onto one side. He and his mum will swim constantly for the next few hours to build up his muscle strength and this will straighten his dorsal fin.

It was an amazing experience and I am so pleased we were here to see it. So what if I have 3^rd degree burns despite wearing lashings of factor 50, it was awesome to be able to see something so amazing, especially after watching for the past 5 weeks.

I will try and get some better photos when there is less glare, but hope these give you a good idea of how cute he is…..see his floppy little dorsal fin in the photo above?