Scuba Diving With Dolphins
Photos from the dolphin dives I did are probably the ones from my entire dive career so far that always get the most immediate positive responses from both other scuba divers and non-divers alike. It’s something about dolphins which gets this type of reaction. You just don’t get the same feeling from other marine life such as sharks or rays (even though I did special dives just to see those too). Maybe only whales and seals might come close. Perhaps it’s the perception that marine mammals are more intelligent and therefore ‘closer’ to us humans than other species of marine life. It could be that dolphins are like bigger versions of dogs in the water and they have shown to actually interact with us.
However, the shot above is also one that can only be taken during one type of special dive that I know of. Sure you can swim with and interact with many dolphins at various dolphin sanctuaries around the world. My first time with them was at such a facility in the Florida Keys many years ago. And of course you can often see dolphins in the water when you are on the dive boats since they like to play with the waves. But to actually scuba dive with them is not so common.
If you see a pod of dolphins in the ocean actually come close enough to you during an actual scuba dive, you are very lucky. Like with whales, dive boats won’t usually be able to drop divers off in a location known to be frequented by dolphins. Even if you get dropped off in the general area where a pod might be hanging out, they might not stay around long enough for you to get a good look.
So how did I get the above shot? Read on.
The Dolphin Dive At Freeport Bahamas
Anthony Keys Resort in Roatan, Honduras runs a dolphin dive where you can scuba dive in the water with them but the interaction is nothing quite like what you will experience with the dolphin dive run by UNEXSO dive operator in Freeport, Grand Bahama Island. This is such a magical experience that I’ve done this dolphin dive on two separate trips there.
Much like their shark dive, the dolphin dive is a special charter run by UNEXSO. After boarding all the divers are on board, the dive boat goes out to a nearby dolphin sanctuary. Here, they ‘pick up’ two resident dolphins. Actually, a second boat with the dolphin trainers comes out with us to the open ocean. The two dolphins follow this second boat out of the sanctuary but we are told in advance that there’s no guarantees that they will actually go to the dive site with us as they are allowed to roam wherever they want once outside the sanctuary.
Fortunately for me, the dolphins were happy to cooperate during both of the dolphin dives I did with UNEXSO. Once at the dive site which is at about 45-50 feet with a sandy bottom, we were instructed to go to the bottom and form a big circle. Much like with shark dives, we were given extra weight so we could stay secure at the bottom.
When all of the divers are set at designated spots, the dolphin trainer motions for the dolphins to come to the center of the circle. Then he directs each dolphin to go to each diver in the circle one at a time to do an interaction. After each diver, the dolphin returns to the trainer in the center of the circle to get a fish treat. This is very much like dogs willing to do tricks for treats.
Each guest diver gets three different types of interactions with the dolphins. One of them is posing with each diver which is how I got the photo at the top. Another interaction has each diver removing his or her regulator and then the dolphin would kiss each diver. I thought that this was absolutely hilarious when I was doing this as I was watching directly into the dolphin’s face while it pretty well pushed her (or his) snout on my mouth.
The final interaction involved each diver to hover above the bottom a few feet with one arm and hand stretched out. Then one of the dolphins would come by and push you on the hand and around like a spinning top as depicted below.
I could feel the strength of the dolphin during this last trick as I’m just glad that my arm didn’t get pushed beyond its limit. All three of these interactions with the dolphins were captured in the video below.
As I was watching the dolphins, of course since they are air breathing mammals, they would occasionally rocket up to the surface to get some air and then dive right back down. This is something that we cannot see up at the surface from a boat. But when you are below underwater watching this, you really get an appreciation how the dolphins can move because they can go up and down pretty fast. This is also captured in the video.
I’m not sure if UNEXSO is still doing videos of their dolphin dives because they had a divemaster capture everything on video during my first time with them. But for the second one I did a few years later, only still photos were taken. Needless to say, guest divers are only happy to pay for these priceless memories captured either on video or photos.
Granted that this dolphin dive is not an encounter with wild dolphins but with trained ones. Still it was loads of fun and special in a way that I got to interact with an amazing creature. I don’t know of any other dive destination in the world that gives scuba divers this type of opportunity with dolphins. So if you want experience this type of dolphin interaction, then going to Freeport, Grand Bahama Island would be the only choice.
