The dolphin who, so the internet swears, once took a man forty feet down to help build an underwater city. The story got so big the Sheriff's office had to step in. Let Gerald tell you himself.
Gerald, foreman · allegedly
Ask around Fort Myers Beach long enough and someone will lean in and tell you about Gerald. It blew up all over the internet a while back. Almost none of it is true. We tell it anyway, because it is a very good story.
It started like any Florida afternoon. A fella was paddling around just off the beach when a pod of dolphins came over to say hello. Leading them, so the story goes, was Gerald.
Gerald, the tale claims, had a job that needed doing. He waved the fella along and took him down. Forty feet down, give or take, into the clear blue.
Down there, the dolphins were apparently building something. An underwater project of sorts, with Gerald as foreman, barking orders in a steady run of clicks. Our guy had good hands, so he was put straight to work.
He washed up on the sand a few mornings on. Barefoot, badly sunburned, and swearing that a dolphin named Gerald had him on the clock. Not one person believed a word of it.
The story spread so far and so fast that the Lee County Sheriff's Office actually stepped in to confirm that no, a man was not kidnapped by dolphins. And just like that, Gerald became a legend.
Here is the honest part. The dolphins really are out there, right off our beach. Ours are friendly, fully above board, and have never once pulled a construction permit. Go see them for yourself on a guided Gulf dolphin tour.
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