I am not entirely sure when the dream to swim with dolphins started to take root. Was it one of the endless summer days I spent swimming in a docile lake, pretending I was a dolphin? Was it their understood kindness, their keen intellect, their impressive flips? I had heard of tours where one could swim with dolphins, but every time I took a closer at the pamphlets, I grew discouraged by what I saw. Glossy photographs of large dolphins, small containers, tourists slicked over in sunscreen in a glorified fish tank clinging to miserable looking dolphins. No thanks.
In New Zealand I found what I thought would be a true swimming with dolphin experience. This tour was not held in a tank hanging off a dock of some tourist-trap resort. Instead, we would board a boat and swim with a pod of bottlenose dolphins in the wild. This, I thought, would be magical.
We boarded the boat and cruised through the glassy water, our captain safety briefing us and then discussing the plan. They were tracking the different pods of dolphins, and because of conservation laws, we could only have so much time with each pod before we would have to turn back. “I’m following one right now and I’m pretty sure we will get you in the water very soon!” He chirped over the loudspeaker, and with that, my beloved and I gazed out at the magnificent scenery along the New Zealand coastline.
As promised, it was not long and we were nearly on top of a pod. Only now, as I gazed below the boat into the dark blue vastness of the water, did I realize that my smug desire to swim with dolphins in the wild might actually be… dangerous.
“They’re right below us!” Our captain exclaimed, and I nodded quietly as I looked and saw absolutely nothing. “Quick! Put on your wetsuits!”
Everyone on the boat scrambled to find a wetsuit, each of us struggling to get the neoprene over our bodies while rocking gently on a boat and trying to hurry before the pod disappeared.
Wetsuits on, we were handed snorkel masks and our next set of instructions: each of us were to sit on the back of the boat, from which two long bars extended off each side.
“So when I say ‘go’,” our captain explained, “grab hold of the bar, and scootch out to the end, then the next person will go, and so on. There should be four people on each bar.” We all looked at each other.
“Then,” he went on, “we are going to pull you through the water with the pod.”
Was it the use of the word “scootch”? Perhaps it was the precarious nature of keeping a death grip on the metal bar, each of us undoubtedly mentally recounting pull ups in gym class and questioning our strength. We all seemed to share a collective “WTF” thought.
I was starting to feel the panic rise in my chest just as the other crew prodded us to get moving, and, stuck in between two others, I had no choice but to scootch my way into the deep blue.
Clinging to the bar, I dipped my head below the surface and saw the tunnel of darkness. No dolphins. “They are down there!” The crew cheered to us, which enhanced the terrifying feeling of a great unknown just below my feet.
Just when I thought it could get no worse, the engines next to me roared, and like a piece of bait on a line, I was being dragged through the freezing dark blue waters. I tried to leave my head below water, but the force of the boat motoring through the choppy waters had me skipping across the surface like a stone.
It didn’t take long before common sense bubbled to the surface and I raised my hand, signaling to pull me in from the deep dark sea. Others did the same and it was time to turn back from the pod.
Disappointed, I shed my wetsuit and wrapped myself in a towel and stared off into the distance, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Just as I came to terms with the fact that this trip was a complete flop, something caught my eye.
Right next to the boat a fin emerged, then another. Soon, we were surrounded by dolphins, some leaping out of the water, others swimming just below the surface.
I stared in awe as they danced around us, grateful for this magical moment. It might not have been the experience I had planned, but as I hung my feet off the bow of the boat, the dolphins creating beneath me, I realized it was still a dream come true.
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