[extropy-chat] Woman marries dolphin

[Damien Broderick]

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/01/01/1136050339590.html

Jerusalem
January 2, 2006

  Sharon Tendler met Cindy 15 years ago. She said it was love at first 
sight. This week she finally took the plunge and proposed. The lucky "guy" 
plunged right back.

In a modest ceremony at Dolphin Reef in the southern Israeli port of Eilat, 
Tendler, a 41-year-old British citizen, apparently became the world's first 
person to "marry" a dolphin.

Dressed in a white dress, a veil and pink flowers in her hair, Tendler got 
down on one knee on the dock and gave Cindy a kiss. And a piece of herring.

"It's not a perverted thing. I do love this dolphin. He's the love of my 
life," she said Saturday, upon her return to London.

Tendler, who said she imports clothes and promotes rock bands in England, 
has visited Israel several times a year since first meeting the dolphin.

When asked in the past if she had a boyfriend, she would always reply, "No. 
I'm going to end up with Cindy." On Wednesday, she made it official, sort 
of. While she acknowledged the "wedding" had no legal bearing she did say 
it reflected her deep feelings toward the bottlenosed, 35-year-old object 
of her affection.

"It's not a bad thing. It just something that we did because I love him, 
but not in the way that you love a man. It's just a pure love that I have 
for this animal," she said.

While she still kept open the option of "marrying human" at some stage, she 
said for now she was strictly a "one-dolphin woman".

She's hardly the jealous type, though.

"He will still play with all the other girls there," she said, of their 
prenuptial agreement. "I hope he has a lot of baby dolphins with the other 
dolphins. The more dolphins the better."

- AP