How it all got started

Charlotte jumping in

Is that a dolphin or a shark ?

See the snorkel right behind the tail fins

Charlotte as interested in them than they in her !

Shortly after moving into our weekend home far away from the noise and stress of Cairo we encountered hearsay about the dolphins that live in our bay. It took us a couple of weeks and a boat ride on our friend Cherif´s motorboat to witness their presence with our own eyes.

We encountered our first dolphin pod out at sea. There was a group of approximately 10 dolphins that swam alongside the whaler with dolphins looking up to us through the transparent surface of the water.
There was no doubt. They were checking us out !

Later we realized that the pod passed pretty much daily at different times right in front our coral reef.
The reef sits right between the white sand beach and the open sea. The dolphins are there but most of the time we simply missed them. The group comes up to breathe in different intervals. A group of adults often only every 5 minutes, and a pod with young ones avery minute or so. So they may surface only every 300 m. Anyway...

One day, when my daughter Charlotte and I were happily paddling away on the kayak we encountered the pod, right there, in the open ! It looked like encountering an army of sharks with their fins coming in and out of the water. And they were coming right at us !

My daughter, 12 then, got quite excited and wanted to jump in. Well, I didn´t know how to feel about this. Dolphins are big beings - between 2-3m long. She kept on begging and my wife was not there so I said, well, ok, but stay close to the kayak so that I can pull you in if they become hostile.
So in she jumped, wearing a underwater camera mask, that our friend Alaa had given to us.
When I saw the pictures I was hooked....