Jennifer Lighty

Swimming With Wild Dolphins

On January 20, 2009, I wasn't planning on swimming with dolphins. I also wasn't planning on watching Obama's first inauguration in the lobby of the historic Manago Hotel in Captain Cook, Hawaii. I had simply wanted to escape the confines of the land-locked work trade I'd drifted into at South Point, the most southerly point in the entire 50 states. Somehow I, a passionate ocean lover, had found myself without a car, far from the water pulling weeds and painting two-by-fours at a retreat center that could only be accessed by driving through a cow pasture. There was a bull, too, which made walking out to the road even more intimidating.