Blum hired several men from town to do the digging and construction of the homearium. The islanders dug a pit off the end of the veranda to create a deeper part of the pool for Junior. The dirt from the pit, they heaped up into a 3-foot-high berm around the veranda and the deep end, creating the walls of the pool. They slathered cement along the inside of the berm, the floor of the veranda and the pit, then covered the cement with waterproof paint.

The first time they flooded the pool, one of the walls collapsed, so they drained it, rebuilt it and flooded it again. This time, the water stayed. The pool was 20 inches deep everywhere except the deep end. Living in the homearium, she would wade everywhere, water almost to her knees, while Junior would have just enough water to swim, his dorsal fin out in the air, his tail slapping the pool’s floor. The depth of the water would be uncomfortable for both.

Over this pool, the men built the home part of the homearium. It covered a little more than half the pool. The walls and roof were made of plywood and framing, the construction as simple as an oversized doghouse with big windows. The rafters were the important part. From them, the furniture hung on chains: a bed, a chair and desk, a propane camp stove, a wood shelf that served as both counter and pantry. Off in the corner was the shower, its opaque dandelion shower curtain trailing in the water, crinkling in the current any time anyone walked by it. All in all, the room resembled some sort of modern-art installation, the furnishings of a home hanging in the air above a reflecting pool. When the wind blew, the furniture swayed, the chains clinking.

Up the stairs of the shallow end was a door to a dry room with the fridge, sink and toilet. The other end was a wall made of sliding glass doors. The sliding doors ended at the level of the water so Junior could swim underneath at any time to reach the deep end of the pool.

She designed this space for herself and Junior, thinking the details through. She told the islanders to redo the work whenever it wasn’t right. When she gave the men directions, they obeyed only once Blum had agreed. He agreed each time, and so they did what she wanted. She felt high with this power.

Busy with the building (designing it, buying the materials, directing the construction), she spent less time with the dolphins.

* * *

During those weeks while the homearium was built, Tibbet was ready to move from observation to his first active experiment. Having tallied a variety of different behaviors by which the dolphins might communicate (such as touch, sound and body position), he now wanted to test if there was any communication actually happening.

As the first step of this research, he asked Cora to train them to identify matching geometric shapes. This would give the dolphins some information to communicate.