Swimming With The Dolphins

Back in October, DeAnna's kids got her a package to swim with the dolphins. We would have cashed it in by now, but the package was for Neptune Charlie's and Neptune Charlie's is only on the Big Island. So this was the day we were going to swim! However, Neptune Charlie called and said we were the only people on the charter and he couldn't take his boat out for just one couple. DeAnna told him that this was our only chance to take a pre-paid trip and he arranged for us to go out on a private charter - or should I say Pirate Charter! Kudos to Neptune Charlie's!

Our captain was Mike Ho. He was very friendly and knowledgeable (I'm bummed that I didn't get his picture). We helped him get his boat into the water and headed out of the marina into the ocean off the western shore of Hawaii. I had visions of floating around in the shallow waters of a calm bay with smiling dolphins letting me pet them and snorkel alongside them. Maybe they would even let me grab their dorsal fin and tag along for a ride like they did in "Flipper". But we were in for much more adventure than that!

Our goal was to find a pod of wild dolphins join them for a swim... in open ocean waters... deep, trackless open ocean waters! Mike guided us along the shoreline to a place where dolphins sometimes frolic. He warned us that the search for dolphins might take a couple of hours, but we found some spinner dolphins within 20 minutes! "Jump in!" Mike said! Aside from the fact we weren't prepared to jump in, it occurred to me that I was jumping into the ocean from a boat among wild animals that attack sharks!

After a few minutes of putting on our wet suits and snorkel gear, I lashed my camera to my wrist and leaped from the boat - instantly losing my bearings and the direction of the dolphins. I surfaced and glanced back at the boat. Mike pointed and I turned to swim in that direction. DeAnna jumped in beside me and we swam for a while without seeing anything but clear blue water (no rocks or bottom - it was too deep).

Suddenly below us, I saw movement and several dolphins swam deep below us! They easily outswam us and seemed to enjoy staying out of reach and often out of camera range (we have countless pictures of beautiful blue water with hazy, blurry, dark blue shapes that only we would recognize as dolphins).

Still, we managed to get some really nifty shots and a couple of swell movies. It was clear that these were wild animals. They stayed together and kept a cautious distance. I dove down to try to get in the middle of them, but they easily swam deeper and faster.

It was HARD WORK to keep up with them and we frequently ended up far away from the boat with no dolphins in sight. At times like these, we took pictures of each other and waited for Mike to tell us where dolphins had surfaced.

Here is me diving down to take a picture of.....





... DeAnna on the surface! But there that's not why we were there!

Dolphins would eventually surface and we'd swim with them again. At one point I got fairly close to the dolphins and was taking a movie. I thought they were once again swimming out of reach until one swam up beside me! Turns out, I was really in the middle of them! It startled me so much I didn't keep the camera trained on the dolphins!


Eventually, two dolphins swam near us and swam slowly enough that we could follow them and take pictures. Both DeAnna and I were able to enjoy observing and photographing them. Mike figured they were mother and child. We thought they were a male and female couple. I liked our romantic idea better.

After a while, the aquatic couple drifted away and the terrestrial couple swam over to the boat to rest. Mike was very gracious and willing to take us out more, but we were pooped after about 3 hours of hard snorkeling!

We bade goodbye to Mike and, like this dolphin, went back to the hotel for a nap! After all, we were returning in about 5 hours for another swim in the ocean. This time with the Manta Rays... Read more about it in the next blog post!