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Swimming with Dolphins
Some people disagree about swimming encounters with dolphins, especially those dolphins in captivity. However, these aren’t captive dolphins but a school of wild dolphins around Bimini in the Bahamas. Furthermore, you soon work out it is the dolphins that are deciding when to swim with you - and not the other way around! Bimini was the main location for Hemmingway’s Islands in the Stream (there are two islands, South Bimini and North Bimini) and a hide away for many famous Americans, from Frank Sinatra to the Apollo 11 astronauts (they relaxed on Bimini just before going to the moon). Martin Luther King also went fishing on the ’bonefish flats’ whilst he worked out what to say for one of the speeches of the 20th century. You know the one .... I have a dream. All of this on a flat archipelago of around 10 sq. miles, so narrow in one place you can throw a stone across it. When Columbus first landed in the New World in 1492 it was somewhere in the Bahamas. They also heard a legend about a fountain of youth at a place called bee mee nee. In 1511 the Spaniard Ponce de Leon went in search of the fountain of youth, but he missed Bimini and accidentally discovered Florida. He also encountered a vast shallow sea only around 30 ft deep, the Great Bahama Bank that he called Baja Mar, the Spanish for shallow sea - the Bahamas. Perched on the edge of the Straits of Florida and the Gulf Stream (Florida is only 50 miles away) Bimini was an ideal location for pirates to lie in wait to plunder Spanish galleons filled with gold. Captain Morgan used it as a lair and many others, including Blackbeard. If you have seen one of those films with a buxom female pirate in the lead it is probably based on Anne Bonney or Mary Read, two pirates of the fairer sex that used to hang out in the Bahamas. What the films don’t portray is that they used to surprise the enemy by fighting topless! For sea fisherman Bimini is a place of pilgrimage with the chance of the ultimate catch - a Blue Marlin. The characters and fishing exploits were made famous by Ernest Hemmingway and on one occasion he caught a huge Blue Marlin that was set upon by sharks, leaving a mutilated prize. Based on this experience Hemmingway put pen to paper and wrote one of the best ever short stories, The Old Man and the Sea. ’Papa’ Hemmingway also liked his booze, drinking at the Complete Angler, and you can still sample the atmosphere today. When there is live gumbay music the Complete Angler is packed with dancing couples, Biminites, fisherman, students, wealthy boat owners and pretty women, creating a distinctive atmosphere. The kind of joint Indiana Jones would stroll into. Bimini is a great place to relax and unwind with idyllic tropical beaches and being a few hours by boat from Miami many Americans turn up on extravagant boats out of a Miami Vice plot. The Bahamas has been the location for many films. Even if you are not a diver and have never been to the Bahamas you might be familiar with the amazingly clear waters and the marine life through underwater sequences for James Bond films like Thunderball as well as films like Cocoon. You can fly in by plane but the best way is to arrive by seaplane, Boy’s Own stuff, on the Pan Am Airbridge. As the seaplane climbs up the ramp out of the water the terminal may look oddly familiar. The terminal area was used for the final sequence when Hannibal Lecter was about to have ’someone for lunch’ in The Silence of the Lambs!
I’ve been lucky to be the guide with groups from Discover the World to swim with the dolphins. The excursions can be in the morning or afternoon with a pre-trip briefing regarding boat safety and dolphin ’etiquette’. You’re told not to touch the dolphins and it is made clear that the dolphins are wild and free. Sometimes the dolphins just want to bow ride, sometimes they don’t turn up. At sea it is great to stand at the bow with the air blowing through your hair. Peering into the crystal clear waters barracudas and needlefish race away from the boat and you can see stingrays and starfish resting on the seabed. Bottle-nosed Dolphins are often the first dolphins to put in an appearance, surfacing close by. ’Flipper’ was a Bottle-nosed Dolphin and many solitary encounters with wild dolphins are with male Bottle-nosed Dolphins and occasionally a school of Bottle-nosed Dolphins will come fairly close when you are in the water. Initially they are eager to bow ride. Some do so with hardly any movement of the body and this can go on for ages. The young can be picked out since they are unspotted, recalling a small and slim Bottle-nosed Dolphin. As they grow older the spotting starts to appear and some mature dolphins can be quite heavily mottled. But no two are alike and individuals can be recognised. It is also difficult to work out who is watching who as the dolphins tilt over to one side to look up at you as they bow ride! Sometimes they try out another game, ’surfing’ the stern wave, often leaping clear of the water. Then, if you are in luck, they surround the boat, willing it to slow down and willing the occupants to come in and play! There is a sudden scramble for masks, snorkels and fins and when the engine is in neutral you all plunge in. ’They want to bow ride’ is the cry from the boat ’I’ll try and bring them back’ and the boat sets off, the dolphins in hot pursuit. Soon the boat is heading back towards us, flanked by dolphins to each side, and as the boat stops they swim on, straight towards us. Diving down inquisitive dolphins race up to me and swim alongside, so close that I’m looking directly into the eye of the nearest dolphin, inches away. They love you to dive and by keeping my legs together in ’monofin’ style I could mimic the dolphins, luring them back to the group at the surface. I also learnt that they loved games. They would swim really close, but not close enough to touch. If you moved away, they followed. If you moved towards them, they would move away in unison. In the end you would be doing an underwater dance as you spiralled around each other.
These encounters were usually intense but brief, as if the dolphins soon got fed up. Sometimes the dolphins would bow ride again, sometimes they would just disappear. The dolphins never touched me and it does take time to be accepted. Apparently they recognise individual people and when a new crew member on the boat is finally ’approved’ dolphins may brush up against them. You could also keep their interest if you were a good diver, especialy if you could dive to the b0ttom about 15m to 20m below. During one encounter ten or so dolphins gathered together, but to one side of me. At first it was all very curious until I realised what was going on, it was a dolphin ’orgy’. Three adults swam up in front of me, coming together to form a Z-shape, snout against belly and snout against belly, dolphin foreplay, ’buzzing’ each other’s genitals with sound. By now the dolphins were no longer interested in swimming and they drifted away, a tight mass of bodies and dorsal fins. Occasionally a head would rise out of the melee or a dolphin would breach before rejoining the throng, to the sound of clicks, squeaks, splashing, and lots of ’puffing’ - dolphin heavy breathing! But not all dolphins are interested in sex. On one occasion a young dolphin appeared and started to bow ride with the boat for quite a time. It would then disappear for a while before appearing further away, bow riding again when we headed in that direction. When we finally spotted a group of amorous dolphins ahead of us we realised what was going on. The young dolphin had been led us to the group. The young dolphin had been fed up with the ’dolphin nookie’ that had been going on and wanted to play with the boat and for the rest of the dolphins to join in! Most profound of all I came away realising that the idea of swimming with dolphins was misleading. They were swimming with us. They chose when to turn up, to invite us to swim with them, and they left when they felt like it. Perhaps dolphins from other areas turn up to join the local Atlantic Spotted Dolphins to swim with the humans! Useful links: |
You have one final check to make sure your mask forms a good seal, breathe through your snorkel, then plunge into the water. Everything is a mass bubbles before you can peer down to the seabed, some thirty feet below. Suddenly three shapes come rushing towards you out of the blue. As you dive down three excited dolphins head straight towards you and bank sharply to swim alongside, dodging each other to be the closest to you. So close that you are peering straight at a dolphin’s eye just inches away!
The Bahamas are superb for diving and have been popular for divers from Cousteau to Don Johnson of Miami Vice. Bimini Undersea Adventures started to organise trips for divers and, a few years ago, some Atlantic Spotted Dolphins decided to swim with them from time to time. Nowadays they organise trips to swim with the dolphins.
Another game was ’follow the leader’. It would be impossible to follow a dolphin that wasn’t interested. But sometimes a dolphin would swim in front then slow down, inviting you to come closer. As you approached the dolphin would slowly dive with you tagging along behind. Other dolphins would join in until I was flanked by two to three on each side and a few ahead of me - I was part of the school!|
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