Winter the Dolphin: Clearwater FL Aquarium

The nonprofit Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Clearwater, Florida, has been doing marine mammal, bird, and turtle rescue work since the mid-1980’s, after the city of Clearwater donated an old water treatment plant to the Aquarium, which was modified into holding tanks for rescued animals. More a working marine hospital than an exhibit aquarium, the center rehabilitates and releases injured and distressed marine wildlife, and keeps those animals which cannot be released on exhibit (currently including dolphins, sea turtles, river otters and pelicans) for use in educational shows and as a way to raise funds through admission tickets for the hospital operations. For years, the center was barely making ends meet. Then in December 2006, the aquarium took in a young rescued female dolphin who had become entangled in a crab trap and had lost her tail. Because it was December, the staff named her “Winter”.

The First Passenger Airliner: The Benoist XIV and the St Pete-Tampa Airboat Line

In a glass-walled hall in the tiny St Petersburg FL Museum of History, a replica of a smallish “flying boat” biplane hangs from the ceiling. It is little-noticed by the tourists who walk past on their way to the beaches and high-end shops and bistros in downtown St Pete, but the Benoist XIV seaplane (pronounced “ben-wah”) made aviation history when it flew on January 1, 1914–it was the first regularly-scheduled commercial passenger airplane flight in the world.