Paintings and Drawings by Savanna

Tropical Rainforest and Caribbean Marine Life

* In the left-side-bar you will now find my painting by their titles.

4' x 5' Oil painting "Discovery" Bottlenose Dolphin

I painted this piece after months of swimming with wild dolphins, and in particular one named Pita, off the outer Cayes of Belize, after a dream about her.

My first surprises - when getting to know this wonderful soul, was her facial expressions, which clearly showed in her moods, her laugh lines and the wrinkles around her eyes and mouth, her vocals and her body language.  My second surprise was that I would learn her games…

The locals called her Pita or Honey, she was a lone dolphin who had lived in the area for over 24 years, they guessed that she was around 27 at the time.  It was suspected that her family had been lost to fishing nets.  She had never joined another pod.

She was well known and loved by the captain’s of local dive boats, and like any woman, she had her favorites for which she would play and show off, and others she would just ignore, no matter how much they coaxed and tried to get her attention.

While I had had the occasion to swim with her snorkeling and diving, it wasn't until I had the opportunity to work on a project at Light House Reef, that swimming with her became a morning ritual.  I like to watch the sun come up and Pita was of the same mind.  Just before dawn, as I dangled my feet off the end of the dock, she would swim past - lazily touching my feet and circle under me, looking up at me in her morning greeting.  Waiting for me to finish my cup of tea and get into the sea to play, which by her expression - seemed to take forever.  At the time I wore a silver Indian ankle bracelet with dangles that she liked to brush past and move, to watch it sparkle, she did it each time she met me, it became a game or her way of touching me in play and saying hello when we would meet each morning. 

Once in the sea, we played a variety of games, many she taught me.  Her favorites from me, were anything silly that had to do with hands or feet, like the little kids game of church and steeple, or a adapted under water version of the Charleston, goofy yes.  She thought hands and toes were the funniest things on earth!  The other games were keep-away or hide and seek with seaweed or objects like a partially filled water bottle that had a neutral buoyancy in the sea.  Tuck it under a coral ledge or into the turtle-grass and it would stay put until you bumped it from its hiding place.  Usually she would hide it and I had to find it, she was good at it, though one day I hid it in the back of the elastic in my swimsuit, and held my hands out - as if it had vanished.  This she thought was very silly or possibly not exactly fair - so she went airborne then did the silliest wiggles circling me.  I laughed so much at times I would have to surface to keep from killing myself.  I'd float on my back catching my breath and she would surface beside me and laze about with me, just watching and hanging out.

After our wonderful times together, I was away for almost 2 years.  When I came back to visit her, she swam directly to my mask, in the most aggressive manner as if she was on an attack, stopping inches from my mask to look me directly in the eye.  I stayed motionless for a moment watching her watch me, then as if to confirm my identity she darted straight down to my ankle - to see if I still wore the old ankle bracelet, and that did it.  She saw the bracelet, brushed it and swam noisy circles around me, brushing against me in the warmest Pita greeting.  It was an incredible feeling to be with my old friend again and have her remember our time together... damn leaky mask (I cried). 

Not long after this, she disappeared.  We all feared the worst. 

Months later came the news that one of the dive boats had spotted her further south, at a quieter Caye.  They were certain it was Pita, but she did not approach them, as she usually would have.  They were worried that she was ill.

A few slow months later, we discovered the real story; a beautiful young sexy male dolphin had left his pod to join her.  The next distant report was, that  “she was looking very round.”  A year later, she approached one of her favorite elated captains again, for a brief play around his boat.  In the distance, the male and her young-one circled lazily together, waiting while mommy played again. 

The Coconut Telegraph Buzzed.