Irresponsible kids on jetskis

Dolphin calf swimming well protected beneath his mother !

Well, what can I say ? This promised to be the perfect day to meet up with the pod- flat sea, blue sky, pretty warm still for a fall day. Alberto and I went out there with our kayak, slowly getting ready for them to meet up with us. They were still 50 m away when suddenly this 12 year old on a 250 hp jetski came shooting at high speed right into the pod.

There are fortunately a lot of responsible jet ski owners out there that respect their neighbors and use their toy at a safe distance from he coast. These people are then penalized by the behaviour of a few idiots. These uneducated elements put the safety of everybody else at risk, pollute the beach with noise and exhaust fumes and generate a lot of bad vibes. When you complain to these kids (and their parents) they don´t understand what the heck you are talking about. When mentioning dolphins they look at you puzzled saying that dolphins enjoy jetskis. And aren´t they just "fish" anyway ?

Dolphins that come up to breathe are vulnerable. When they move with their calfs they are on top extremely protective. The picture above shows how the calf always stays well protected under his mother. The fast moving jetskies create extreme stress for the group. Their reaction is to dive deep down, travel at the very bottom of the seafloor, change radically directions, usually for the open, and try to come up as little as possible.  They disappear and pop up hundreds of meters further away. When they finally come up the jetski rush in again leaving dolphins no time to grasp air. They usually stay away from the stress area for a couple of days.

Unforunately, after passing successfully the first jetski two more appeared full speed. I just witnessed the group try to pass the area swiftly. As soon as the worst stretch seemed to have been overcome yet another jetski and a big motor boat took aim and rushed right into the pod.

The dolphins dipped down, changed their intended trajectory and were not seen again.

Help !

Returning home

The sun set and look who swims back up the coast ...

How intelligent are dolphins ?

Low visibility today, the water is getting cooler

This year the Eid El Fitr holiday fell on the week between 13-20 November. It is the only time of the year when everybody that owns a secondary home by the Red Sea will use his home. The sea is full of jet skis that are driven by 10 year olds. Sitting by the beach is somehow like sitting by Cairo´s ringroad and watching the traffic.

Durning the feast Egyptians eat a lot of meat and then sleep long into the day. The beach fills up late, at around 2 p.m.
With all the noise and chaos of the boats and jet skis the dolphins were nowhere to be seen for the past couple of days. Finally today, before all the havoc started they passed.
It is the same pod as always. Lots of females with their calfs. They are wonderful to watch.

We went in and met the whole crowd. Swiftly the calfs were lead away and - surprise - the same two dolphins from last week and the week before stayed around. We recognized each other immediately. The male individual, a sturdy big dolphin with a thick neck, has a cleft in his lower jaw which creates a white reflection. He is always accompanied by a female (See last weeks entries). There was a real welcome !

By strictly keeping the hands by the waist and swimming with parallel fins the dolphins are much more at ease. I guess this is an essential rule when swimming with these creatures: Try to swim like them !

I turned around and swam belly up and then one of the dolphins flipped and swam belly up as well.

Now intelligence is often defined as the mental ability to learn and apply knowledge and the ability to reason. These bottlenose dolphins clearly recognize us, the perceive clearly our behaviour to then interact in a very playful manner.

There is one dolphin in our bay that seemed to have a plastic bag permanently stuck to his dorsal fin. Every now and then we could witness him, over long periods, dragging along this awful piece of garbage. Then one day, inside the water I was stunned to see that the bag had shifted from the dorsal fin to his tail.

Dolphin´s tail fin starring a plastic bag 

A few minutes later the bag had found his way back to the dorsal fin ! The dolphin was playing !
He was juggling the bag from one fin to the other. Now I have not read about this behaviour anywhere yet.

Another sign of intelligence is the ability to evaluate and judge.

A while back I was happily swimming down the coast with four big dolphins. When the calfs are not around dolphins get much more playful. And these four individuals would wait for me to catch up, as I was obviously much slower then their slowest speed, and we would continue our trip. Then we met up with this guy who was harpoon fishing. Now harpoon fishing is strictly forbidden all over the red sea. He had already caught 3 fish and had attached them to his belt. The dolphins on seeing him got frantic, swam a few zigzags and then dashed off.
What surprised me was the fact that they had made a clear distinction between me, a peaceful human and this harpoon wielding human. They had evaluated this guy and had judged him a threat.

Witnessing their their hunting technique, swimming in huge circles and trapping swarms of fish and letting one individual after another feed, is very clever and shows a high level of social organisation.

In direct interaction with these incredible creatures we learn a little more each time of how to communicate with each other. Meeting dolphins is meeting intelligent life.

Calling their friends !

Shot from minus two meters upwards

This week some nasty virus went around in Cairo and the whole family got infected. Boy, were we sick, but Charlotte and I went to the sea anyway, not wanting to miss a dolphin weekend. Chacha was already back on her feet but I still felt weak. So, although the weather was warm and the water perfect for a November day, I wore my weatsuit.

We were already out on the sea paddling around when we spotted to pod taking their usual track down the coast. The dolphin calfs poped out and into the water with the adults around. We moved slowly adjacent to their trajectory then rowing parallel. Two dolphins followed us swimming right below our kayak. Then we decided to go in.

The dolphin pod checks us out

A beautiful shot by Charlotte

Here they come again

This pictures gives a good idea about the limited visibility

When Charlotte and I entered the group split in tow, the small ones where led away into another direction and were no more to be seen. Visibility was not great, maybe 15m.
At first most of the adults were still around, they swam away very slowly towards the rest of the group  and at last three dolphins remained with us. Two of them were the very same dolphins that we had been last weekend. We recognized them immediately !

While in the water my friend Lorenzo joined us, and he was hooked straight away. He is an expert scuba diver and enjoys encounters with sharks. He was amazed by how close you get to these big creatures. I think we will see him more often now....

Charlotte reads everything she can about dolphins and shares each discoveries with me. This time we had decided to really keep our hands to our body, no extended hands allowed and to swim keeping the fins locked - like dolphins. And third, to go about it very gently, calmly. Dolphins reflect your energy. When you get excited, they get hyped up, and when you are zen, they are cool too.

I tried something else on top, I dived down and then swam belly up next to the dolphins. When dolphins swim belly up it is usually an invitation to cuddle. I guess there is also a dimension of submission in this behavior, a sign of non aggression. Their reaction was quite amazing. They came around me and checked this out, looking intensely, then they started to communicate between each other.  Next I saw our two friends swim together, him up her with her belly up beneath him as if to say: I´m already taken.

The couple swimming belly to belly

Then one gave out a clearly audible whistle, like at a football match, and seconds later all the other adult dolphins appeared and were all around us.
Wow ! He had called his friends !

The white mark on the lower jaw - this is last weeks couple !

Friendly and curious

Taking pictures with her liquid mask 

Dolphins all over

This encounter had lasted for approximately 25min. As often it stopped when an intrusion took place, this time by a motor boat.