Link to site: Tony Deyal, Saturday, 1/14 2006

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Highlights:
- In 1989 the US navy launched a top secret project called the "Cetacean Intelligence Mission". Dolphins, fitted with harnesses and small electrodes planted under their skins, were taught to patrol and protect docked Trident submarines and stationary warships at sea.
- Ponds holding the dolphins and 36 of them were swept out to sea and were feared to be around the Bahamas. The navy was scared that because they had learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who simulated terrorists in exercises, the dolphins would fire the toxic darts they carried at any divers they saw. It would be no accident
- Tony Deyal was last seen saying that dolphins are so intelligent that within minutes they can train a human to stand at the side of a pool and feed them fish.

There are Navy SEALs who are not really seals and there are dolphins. In the 1973 film, Day of the Dolphin, George C Scott plays Dr Jake Terrell, a scientist who spent many years training a pair of dolphins to speak and understand English. The dolphins are stolen to be used in an assassination attempt. In 1989 the US navy launched a top secret project called the "Cetacean Intelligence Mission". Dolphins, fitted with harnesses and small electrodes planted under their skins, were taught to patrol and protect docked Trident submarines and stationary warships at sea.

Hurricane Katrina breached the ponds holding the dolphins and 36 of them were swept out to sea and were feared to be around the Bahamas. The navy was scared that because they had learnt to shoot at divers in wetsuits who simulated terrorists in exercises, the dolphins would fire the toxic darts they carried at any divers they saw. It would be no accident, the dolphins would shoot on porpoise. Worse, because the Bahamas tourism industry is built on scuba diving and snorkelling, a wet suit could become a death suit.

It is not also in war that dolphins, like humans, excel. Scientists who have studied these matters say that in addition to being remarkably intelligent, or maybe because of it, dolphins are the only animals, beside humans, that have sex for fun- a clear case of war and piece. In the case of the bottlenose dolphin, though, would that have been known before the species was named? And is this the purpose of the dolphin's "blowhole"?

The "beside" humans business has now become literal, or to be more geographically accurate (to be shore), littoral. According to an Israeli newspaper, in a report on December 29, 2005, Sharon Tendler, a 41-year-old Jewish millionaire from London married a male dolphin named Cindy at Israel's Eliat resort where there is a dolphin reef.

Even before the full story emerged people were asking whether the bride sponsored the cost of the groom's outfit and reception or whether he had to go to a loan shark to get the money. Did she wear a flowing veil and a sea-through outfit and did they take a vow to forget the past and let it all be water behind the bridge? With a name like Cindy, does that indicate that the dolphin groom already has an identity crisis that could be compounded by trying to behave like a Jewish husband? Would that be kosher?

The whole business has been plagued by misunderstandings and deliberate attempts to muddy the waters of the wedding. The fact is that Ms Tendler, a British rock concert producer, and not the groupie or grouper claimed by her critics, met Cindy 15 years ago and it was a case of love at first sight.

When she fed him it became a case of love at first bite. Since then she has been visiting Eliat, a city on the Gulf of Aqaba, two or three times a year to spend time with her 35-year-old underwater sweetheart. "The peace and tranquility under water, and his love, would calm me down," the Israeli daily quoted her as saying.

Last week, Ms Tendler finally plucked up the courage to ask the dolphin's trainer, Maya Zindler, for the mammal's fin in marriage. The amazed spectators watched the bride, wearing a white dress, walk down the dock to where the groom was waiting in the water. She kissed him, to the cheers of those present, and then after the ceremony was "sealed" with some mackerels, the bride was tossed into the water so she could swim away with her new husband.

Apart from the rumour that they were honeymooning in Sardinia and not Maracas Bay where the bride would eat the bake and the groom the shark, there was an anxious moment while they waited for any objection to the marriage. Some rumour-mongers had spread the word that the groom was really the author, Salman Rushdie, hiding from the "fatwah" of fundamental Islam for his Satanic Verses and who was now disguised as a fish, Salmon Rushdie.

However, since the humans and dolphins present opted for holding their tongues temporarily before wagging them, the ceremony proceeded to its finale without any further red herrings except another rumour that the groom was a Navy SEAL in disguise and would probably blow up the bride.

"I'm the happiest girl on earth,'' the bride was quoted as saying. "I made a dream come true. And I am not a pervert.'' The groom, now that his future is secure, is reputed to have said, "No more attempting to be a contestant on the Whale of Fortune" but that might merely be malicious gossip. He definitely will be provided for when he is old and hard of herring. It is a prospect to make him flip.

However, the future is fraught, or froth, with enough problems to make the couple believe they have swum into a Tsunami. Would the groom have to convert to Judaism or is his residency in Israel taken as satisfying that requirement? Would he qualify for UK citizenship? In what religion would the children be brought up? And worst of all, would he have to eat gefilte fish?

- Tony Deyal was last seen saying that dolphins are so intelligent that within minutes they can train a human to stand at the side of a pool and feed them fish.