In case you didn´t know....I SWAM WITH DOLPHINS!!! In the wild! Not in a pool, not at a park, not with trained dolphins...completely wild and free!
Deep breath.
Okay. So. On December 1st, we were headed out to a monitoring site called SMDR20, which was about 30 minutes away by boat, when our lovely captain, Tristan, decided it was actually too rough to make it there without crawling the whole way, so we radioed to base, and decided to have a fun dive instead, at a closer location. No sooner did that transmission come through when a fellow diver on the boat squealed, ¨LOOK!¨ Other divers chimed in, and I was left wondering what all the fuss was about.
¨There!¨ followed by more squealing.
¨What is it?¨ I finally asked.
¨Dolphins!!¨
I launched off of my bench to the side of the boat (not the smartest of ideas in rough seas...) desperate for a glimpse. I couldn´t see one anywhere! I frantically scanned the waves, but every time someone pointed, it was gone before I could look. And then I saw it--a shiny, slippery gray dorsal fin slicing up and out of the water and cresting downward again out of sight. !!!!!!!!!!!!!! A dolphin! But wait! Two dolphins! Three! Four! I´ve lost track!
As the boat was moving through the rough seas as fast as it could (ie, crawling by boat standards) the dolphins were circling us and generally putting our speed to shame. They swam under the boat, then leapt out of the water on the other side in a dramatic show of their superior maneuvering skills. We radioed the other boat which quickly made its way to our location. We now have two boats, speeding along with a large pod of dolphins swimming between. We begged to dive right then and there, but they had to drop us off in a location that was pre programmed into the gps they had, so we picked out the nearest location--Lagrimas Negras it was called, which was about 1.2 km away--and did our best to get there as quickly as we could.
We kitted up in record time, definitely performing the fastest buddy check in history, and then backwards rolled off the boat, into the sea. As soon as we were gathered together, we decended, and saw......nothing. Where did they go?? We scanned the water all around us as we slowly sank to 10....20.....30 feet. We listened. We waited. And we looked some more. Minutes passed, and our racing heartbeats began to slow down, and I stopped using up my air at 10 bar a minute. And I waited. I began to accept the fact that they probably just kept on swimming when the boats stopped. Oh well. At least we had seen them from the boats. That in itself was a once in a lifetime----WAIT! Someone yelled through their regulator and pointed, and my gaze followed...Ten dolphins! Swimming right for us! So graceful, so beautiful, so playful!
They circled us twice and swam off, and my heart sank, but they were back 2 minutes later, teasing us by swimming close and then scooting away. They did that about seven times, returning in different sized groups, sometimes swimming upside down, sometimes swimming fast and leaping out of the water.
Our dive profile was 22 meters for 30 minutes, so we eventually had to surface. As we were holding at 5 meters for our safety stop, they came around us again, quite close, and when we reached the surface, they really had some fun, swimming as close as 5 feet away from us, making noises and doing laps! As we passed our gear up to the captain to load back into the boats we kept our masks on, still stealing glances underwater at these magnificent creatures. Once we were all back on the boat, they still followed us until we were only a kilometer from base. We all definitely squealed the entire way home like 12 year old girls at a Jonas Brothers concert. Smiles and goofy grins were pasted on our faces for the remainder of the day...and most of the week for that matter. They played with us for over 45 minutes! Tristan said he´s never seen a pod stay that interested for so long....especially not a pod this large!
I SWAM WITH DOLPHINS!!!
Oh and guess what? No one had a camera.
¨There!¨ followed by more squealing.
¨What is it?¨ I finally asked.
¨Dolphins!!¨
I launched off of my bench to the side of the boat (not the smartest of ideas in rough seas...) desperate for a glimpse. I couldn´t see one anywhere! I frantically scanned the waves, but every time someone pointed, it was gone before I could look. And then I saw it--a shiny, slippery gray dorsal fin slicing up and out of the water and cresting downward again out of sight. !!!!!!!!!!!!!! A dolphin! But wait! Two dolphins! Three! Four! I´ve lost track!
As the boat was moving through the rough seas as fast as it could (ie, crawling by boat standards) the dolphins were circling us and generally putting our speed to shame. They swam under the boat, then leapt out of the water on the other side in a dramatic show of their superior maneuvering skills. We radioed the other boat which quickly made its way to our location. We now have two boats, speeding along with a large pod of dolphins swimming between. We begged to dive right then and there, but they had to drop us off in a location that was pre programmed into the gps they had, so we picked out the nearest location--Lagrimas Negras it was called, which was about 1.2 km away--and did our best to get there as quickly as we could.
We kitted up in record time, definitely performing the fastest buddy check in history, and then backwards rolled off the boat, into the sea. As soon as we were gathered together, we decended, and saw......nothing. Where did they go?? We scanned the water all around us as we slowly sank to 10....20.....30 feet. We listened. We waited. And we looked some more. Minutes passed, and our racing heartbeats began to slow down, and I stopped using up my air at 10 bar a minute. And I waited. I began to accept the fact that they probably just kept on swimming when the boats stopped. Oh well. At least we had seen them from the boats. That in itself was a once in a lifetime----WAIT! Someone yelled through their regulator and pointed, and my gaze followed...Ten dolphins! Swimming right for us! So graceful, so beautiful, so playful!
They circled us twice and swam off, and my heart sank, but they were back 2 minutes later, teasing us by swimming close and then scooting away. They did that about seven times, returning in different sized groups, sometimes swimming upside down, sometimes swimming fast and leaping out of the water.
Our dive profile was 22 meters for 30 minutes, so we eventually had to surface. As we were holding at 5 meters for our safety stop, they came around us again, quite close, and when we reached the surface, they really had some fun, swimming as close as 5 feet away from us, making noises and doing laps! As we passed our gear up to the captain to load back into the boats we kept our masks on, still stealing glances underwater at these magnificent creatures. Once we were all back on the boat, they still followed us until we were only a kilometer from base. We all definitely squealed the entire way home like 12 year old girls at a Jonas Brothers concert. Smiles and goofy grins were pasted on our faces for the remainder of the day...and most of the week for that matter. They played with us for over 45 minutes! Tristan said he´s never seen a pod stay that interested for so long....especially not a pod this large!
I SWAM WITH DOLPHINS!!!
Oh and guess what? No one had a camera.
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