On Thursday morning, we made the 2 hour trek to Clearwater, Florida.
Clearwater is the Spring Training Home of the Phillies, but it's also the home of Winter the Dolphin from A Dolphin Tale movie. The Clearwater Marine Aquarium was were Winter was brought in 2005 when she was found in a crab trap. She eventually lost her tail, but she beat the odds and taught herself to swim without a tail, but she swims more like a fish than a dolphin without it. Her story was heard by a Prosthetic Company, and they worked with her trainers and doctors to make a special gel and prosthetic that will help her swim like a dolphin and help her spine to last longer.
They filmed the movie here at the Aquarium, so when you first walk up, you see Clay and Hazel's boat house...so COOL!
And then we found Winter swimming!
She only puts on her prosthetic a couple of times a day to swim, so we never got to see here with her tail:
The Aquarium also has 3 other dolphins that they've rescued.
Nicholas put on a great show for us:
During Winter's Show, they did therapy with her, so you could see some of the work and training they do with her:
They also had sea urchins and sting rays, a couple of nurse sharks and lots of rescued turtles!
In Downtown Clearwater, they've made a museum of sorts of a lot of the props from the Movie. This was a holographic of Winter swimming that the kids LOVED! They watched Winter for over 10 minutes:)
One of Winter's favorite toys is a blue mat, and this one was used in the movie. They had is propped up, so you could stand in front of it and look like you're floating on it!
There was a Save Winter Day Carnival area with games like they had on the movie, too:
And finally, they had a Hurricane Simulation where you walked through Sawyer's house, then outside during a hurricane. It was rough and scared the kids, but I thought it was cool!
Of course, they sell stuffed Winters, and we came home with two of them!
We LOVED seeing and meeting Winter, and it makes watching the movie so much better:)
