Sometimes it is difficult to balance the ethics of travel, especially where animals are involved. It has been a dream of mine to swim with dolphins for a very long time. However, I wasn’t willing to pursue it until I found a way that was good for me as well as comfortable for the dolphins. Futurismo Azores provided us with that opportunity.
Accompanying us on our zodiac was a marine biologist. Her job was to observe the dolphins to ensure we weren’t stressing them. For example, if the dolphins were avoiding the boat we would not approach that pod of dolphins. Once an accepting pod was found only two people at a time were slipped into the water. Snorkel and mask, no fins. The boat would leave us there and circle back to get us once we had experienced dolphins in their natural environment. To be clear, there was no actual “swimming” with the dolphins. You stay on the surface of the water as still as you can. You only swam when it was time to get back onto the boat. Ray and I had three turns in the water. The first was six juvenile bottlenose dolphins. Ray was able to get videos of those. If you listen carefully you can hear them talking. The other groups were large pods of adult bottlenose dolphins which were much bigger. We do not have a video of those. They came very close to us so we kept exceptionally still. How was it? It exceeded my expectations. Someone that was watching my encounter from the boat said, “Where did you look? You were surrounded by dolphins”. At one point an adult dolphin came up from below and we were face to face. I swear it looked me right in the eyes. I will never forget that feeling. Happy days for me and I think the dolphins😄 You are Always in my Prayers. Love Mom.
13 Comments
NPW7
5/23/2023 06:54:25 am
Were you scared since it was in the wild?
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Diane
5/23/2023 03:12:50 pm
I was a little surprised when I saw the boat pulled away and left you there. But otherwise we were wearing all the equipment to be safe.
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NpwS7JM
5/23/2023 07:03:34 am
Was it cool to hear the dolphins talking in their groups?
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Diane
5/23/2023 03:13:43 pm
Wry cool. I can’t believe how well you can hear them under water.
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Diane
5/23/2023 03:17:41 pm
Oops… very cool
Alexis Hailey
5/23/2023 07:06:07 am
Did you end up touching the dolphins?
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Diane
5/23/2023 03:16:20 pm
Some adults came close enough, but we respected the rules.
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ACAW7Schaefer
5/23/2023 07:13:54 am
How fast were the dolphins?
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Diane
5/23/2023 03:19:38 pm
Dolphins can swim over 10 km/h. When we were in the water with them they didn’t seem to be going that fast, when they were swimming beside the boat it felt like they could be going that fast.
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ZRW7
5/23/2023 07:14:10 am
How far did you go with the dolphins?
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Diane
5/23/2023 03:20:50 pm
We kept as still as possible until the dolphins left us.
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Molly, Kelsey
5/23/2023 07:14:14 am
Seems like you saw lots of dolphins
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Diane
5/23/2023 03:22:47 pm
I would say we saw 50 dolphins under the water and many more swimming along beside us.
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