Last night, Sebi, the Indian man who we're renting our huts from, arranged a boat trip for us to go visit the local dolphin pod in their morning feeding spot.
A jeep drove up to the beach then brought us around to the small beach I'd found the morning before. We climbed into the small wooden boat, rigged with a propeller engine, and made our way around Palolem while our friendly driver sang folk tunes to the beat of the sputtering motor.
Soon we arrived close to a rocky cove and the driver turned off the engine and said it would be better to stay quiet.
After a couple of minutes, he was enthusiastically pointing out the small gray fins as they momentarily spun up from the sea. We paddled a bit closer and watched the small family as they came up for air then go back down for their meal. A few times we spotted a mom with her two young ones following beside her. I'd often hoped to see dolphins in my life, and though it didn't match the experiences I've heard people tell of their encounters with dolphins in Virginia Beach, it was good enough for me this beautiful, hot morning!
Our last full night in Palolem was interesting. After another amazing dinner, we made our habitual move down the line of restaurants in search of Banofee pie (Goa gets special mention on the Banofee pie wiki). I usually went to bed early while the others had some drinks but tonight I decided to stay out (sunrise was getting a bit boring...). Though we thought we'd finally left the Estonian crew behind, they managed to find us again and sat at the table just beside us. They did exactly look drunk, but they weren't in their natural minds... Somehow, we all started talking, I guess there was no point in pretending we hadn't been slightly infatuated with them, and the blonde got Shelley and Nadine up to "dance" (for lack of another term, better or worse...) with her and some of the Indian men. Between the four of us, we ended up getting quite a story, though Shelley really did prefer the porno anecdote! The blonde girl was actually Airi, an Estonian pop star, who'd opened for the Rolling Stones when they toured Eastern Europe during their Bridges to Babylon tour, and they were in Goa filming a video for her new single "Monsoon". It also happened to be her 30th birthday! The guy was her manager and we think was the father of her 10 and 5 year old children, though I don't know if any of us actually confirmed it, whatever... The buff brunette was their friend and a former World Champion female body builder, though I wasn't able to find anything about her online...
As for Airi, if you don't believe me, here it is:
I have to say, I was more impressed with the dolphins!
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