Swimming with Wild Dolphins

This week has been filled with small miracles. First, I went a whole week without getting a single mosquito bite. Then, my video housing which had been broken for over a month... started working again! (Much to my relief, I found that the irreplaceable electronics are fine, the main connector just had some corrosion on it.) And then a new gym opened up nearby so I could resume a work-out schedule while in Cozumel. Now, today, I got to swim with WILD DOLPHINS. I am not making this up.

Even better, I had the (now working perfectly) video housing with me on this trip, so I got in-water video while I was snorkeling. No, unfortunately I wasn't in scuba gear at the time we came across this pod of 5 adult dolphins, but what I got on video still looks pretty good. These were B-I-G dolphins. Easily thrice my body weight. The story played out like this:

We had just finished our 3rd tank dive on Paradise reef and were heading back to the dock. It's about a 15 minute boat ride. Suddenly the divemaster shouts "Dolphins!" and everyone scrambles out to the bow of the boat. I grab my video on the way there and sure enough, el capitan has set the boat right on their tails. Or they swam up to under the bow of the boat... I'm not sure which. So there I am on the forward pulpit over the bow, shooting video straight down of these lovely creatures as they pace the boat, leaping out every now and then. They soon wandered off in a different direction.

That wasn't all. We were then told el capitan was going to race ahead of them and we could jump in the water with snorkel gear. Nemecio was extremely generous to loan me his snorkel since I don't have one. So - In the water we go! I get a few distance shots of them and then suddenly the whole pod swims right underneath me. What a great experience!!! The moment is over all to quick, but thankfully captured on video.

We went two more times to jump in and snorkel with them but the first encounter was the best. This was such an amazing trip! The capitan and crew of Aqua Safari's "Ocean III" were incredibly generous with their time and accommodating to the five of us divers who enjoyed this trip beyond words. We all tipped well today.

About the Video

I just learned today that Blogger allows me to post video. This is my first attempt doing a blog with a video snippet. All told I have about eight minutes of video, most of it above water as they danced among the three boats that were there at the time. Trying to handle the camera while snorkeling is much harder and much more restrictive than while scuba diving as I quickly learned, but for a spur-of-the-moment encounter I am pretty happy with it.

Some still shots

Here are a few stills extricated from the video using Pinnacle Studio. They are grainy but the best I can do with what I've got. If you see me in person anytime in the next few months be sure to ask to see the whole video.


The image above was captured from the video when I was on the bow of the boat, as the dolphins paced us this one turned to "look" at me as I was filming it.

The following pictures are excerpts from the video above.