Kayaking with the Dolphins turns out to mean that we would be taken out in a 115 horsepower motor boat to search the ocean for a large pod of dolphins. When found, the kayaks would be lowered into the water and we would paddle out to meet them. If they hang around long enough we can also snorkel with them.
Our boat headed out and found a small pod of dolphins in short order. The guide asked us if we want to kayak now, but admitted that this is a small pod. We chose to keep looking. The boat roared all the way out to and around the nearby Cano Island but we never saw another dolphin, let alone a large pod of them. The boat roared around the ocean, gobbling gasoline and using up the time of two Ticos (our guide who speaks English, and the boat captain). Even Maryly noticed that this really cannot seriously be called "Eco-tourism".
Since we didn't get to kayak at all, let alone with dolphins, I instructed our guide to take us to "San Josecito", the cove we had snorkeled in the day before. We told him we would just take the kayaks and paddle ourselves home. At first he said they would follow along slowly in the motorboat. We convinced him to just head back early (which got him in a little trouble with his boss). Before he left he admonished us to stay away from the rocks!
The kayaks were a big disappointment. They were nice boats, five meter long Perception Kayooks or something similar. But the resort did not have spray skirts for them! Personally I felt that this bordered on dangerous neglect. If you are going to put people in open boats, use sit on tops, don't give them sit-insides that can fill up with water when there is no spray-skirt! Without the skirts, the boats were worthless for surfing, rough seas, or rock gardening. So telling us to stay away from the rocks should not have been necessary.
Of course I went behind every rock I could anyway. The first time I tried this a large wave rose up over some shallow rocks and started breaking on me. I braced into it and discovered that Maryly was passing me on the other side. I side surfed and banged into her. Fortunately the wave calmed down in deeper water under us and we didn't get in any real trouble. I chided Maryly for violating the surf protocol of letting the boats get lined up in the direction the waves were going. I told her to stay offshore from me and not take more risks than I did by getting even closer to shore. She replied that she didn't want me to have all the fun. But she did stay behind me for the rest of the trip.
Our guide had told us we would find few places to land and use our snorkeling gear. Another group of guests at the resort had tried to land the kayaks on a nearby beach a few days before. One of them dislocated her shoulder landing on that dumpy beach. On our walk the day before, however, I had identified several beautiful pocket beaches between rocks and felt that we would be able to land. So I kept my eyes open while on the water and pointed out beaches as we passed them. This upset Maryly who had decided it wasn't safe to land. Eventually we did land at one beach but Maryly was antsy about getting back on the water before conditions changed. So we never got to go snorkeling that day.
However, we did have a nice paddle down a rugged coastline with jungle growing right down to the volcanic rocks on the shore. We saw three bright red macaws flying and calling raucously in the canopy above us. After landing in front of our bungalow to pick up a camera, we continued up the river next to our resort. Up this river, which also only went a few hundred meters before becoming impassible, we saw spider monkeys, kingfishers of several types, and a troupe of white faced monkeys crossing a hanging bridge. As I approached a concrete dock I scared a swimming iguana up onto the dock. He stood still, hoping I wouldn't notice. It almost worked until Maryly pointed him out to me. I drifted close enough to touch his tail and then he ran into the water on the other side of the dock, back out onto shore, and up a tree. Then we let the mild river current take us pack to our resort.