Our boat, Carolina Snowball

Our boat is named Carolina Snowball after a local dolphin in the Beaufort area who was known to stand out.

 

Carolina Snowball was an albino dolphin who lived in the area in the 50’s and 60’s until she was captured in 1962 to be a show dolphin since her captors believed there would be high demand to see a white dolphin perform tricks. However, she didn’t go down easily. It took her captors 58 days of actual pursuit over the course of 10 months to capture that beautiful girl. At that time, she was also a mother to Sonny Boy who was also captured.

 

They both were sent to an aquarium in Miami, Florida to be trained to perform, but Carolina Snowball was wild at heart and refused to learn tricks. Despite this, she was still the most popular attraction at the aquarium due to her white color, pink eyes, and dark teeth.

 

Carolina Snowball suffered from the stresses of captivity for 3 years before succumbing to her multitude of stress-related illnesses. She didn’t die in vain, however. It is because of Carolina Snowball that a law was passed in 1976 that prohibits cetaceans to be held captive and on display in the State of South Carolina.

 

The State of California later banned the selling and breeding of certain cetaceans and Canada also recently banned any new captive facilities from being established.

 

While we still have a long way to go to work towards wild, free, happy, and healthy cetaceans, Carolina Snowball brought the stresses of captivity to out attention and that is why we chose to dedicate our boat in her name.

 

Credit: O’Barry, Ric. Behind the Dolphin Smile. United Kingdom, Renaissance Books, 1999