Mega Migration

There was wave after wave of dolphins

Today the dolphins migrated south. Charlotte counted 6 dolphin pods. The bay was full, they came in waves. There were approximately 60 dolphins !

While we swam with the first group the last group waited in front of our beach and two dolphins did a couple of spectacular jumps. It was right there, we were always sit. They seemed to call us.

The water was full of sounds - dolphin communication is strangely beautiful. It is like listening into an extra terrestrial radio station.

And these groups were highly interactive today. And they accepted us in completely and being very interactive. Amazing !

We recognized many, there was the dolphin with the cord attached, the huge adults, the dolphin couple and many others.

Finally out of breath I went back in and let Charlotte and Marco have their turn.
These are all Charlotte´s pictures. When they finished they got back into the kayak. The pod was well past. I had to row hard to catch up with the pod. When I did and it was my turn I found that my mask has disappeared. We must have dropped it somewhere...

I spent the rest of the day zigzaging our bay with a snorkel and another mask - to no avail.
Shit happens - at least I tried. #*%&!!

The whistles and clicking sounds were constant

They took us in as during the last sessions

He studies us, we study him

After this group came another and then another 

They swam past us, turned around to pass again, a little closer  

This one wiggled and invited us to play

It is quite apparent how inviting the group is

A last close look

The Dolphin ramble

Hello again !

It´s past 2 p.m. A group of dolphins appears from the north.
We take the kayak and Marco, Charlotte´s cousin, along. He is excited to swim with the dolphins too. When we reach the group we give him the sign to go in. He takes his mask and adjusts it, and adjusts it again, and then gets slowly ready to go in. But the group is already well past.
We give it another try, row and row, until we give him a second go. He goes in a little quicker and catches a glimpse of two dolphins. It´s no so easy, one has to get the drift to move along with the pod. The dolphins usually don´t wait.

Then I go in. There are five young dolphins, one of them is a female, maybe two.
They are venturing out, away from the adults, enjoying their adolescent bloom and hormons. They can´t leave off each other, the males try again and again to move underneath the female, fully erect.

We get a warm welcome. The come around and let us into the group. As we swim along they slowly increase the speed until I loose them. Then Charlotte goes in. The dolphins literally stop in the water to wait for her. I have never seen that before. Then they circle around her.

She twists and turns in the water and the dolphins are all around her. They give her the special treatment. Maybe because she is younger and they still see the child in her ? Or maybe because she is a girl ? Or maybe its because she swims without a wetsuit ? Anyway, it´s beautiful to see how they engage.

The dolphins are highly sexual active. Two young males try their luck on on female. Rubbing, swimming belly up underneath her. Charlotte snaps away on her camera mask, only to find later that she had hit the wrong button and switched on the video function. The picture quality is poor.

They were five young individuals

Charlotte

Travelling with the group

Hello human !

Inside the group

For the scientifically interested: Dolphin poop 

Happy threesome - dolphin sex !

More dolphin sex

Last turn before the group vanishes

The rendezvous !

Me swimming belly up

It´s around 1 p.m. I spot the dolphins, they come up from the south. We move out in two kayaks. The children are in one, I row my brother in law in the other.
We join the pod and Fabio goes in, I join him shortly after. We get adopted into the pod again, the group seems to actually enjoy our appearance. There are about 10 dolphins. Our friends swim slowly so we can keep up with them. The old guard swims with slow moves. The young adults are spirited and wiggle and dash from left to right. There is one calf in the group that is eventually discretely lead away.

The kids catch up. They don´t have the muscle power. We swap kayaks. The young Marco hops into our kayak so the girls can row faster. Charlotte let´s everybody else swim with her mask, is proud to have them experience these miracles but slowly and steadily grows nervous. I see her innerly tormented. We make a final move. She comes with me and Fabio goes into the other kayak.

There is another group of dolphins much further away. Our pod will propably meet up with them later on.

We have already moved up the coast for a few kilometers. Charlotte goes in. The dolphins are all around her. The plays, makes move in the water, makes sounds, swims belly up, engages, and the dolphins respond. I follow her with the kayak.

Then I go in and she takes over. While I´m down under she tells me a dolphin stuck his head straight out of the water, shook it thrice and disappeared, as if to say, come back in.

The group is extremely welcoming and communicative. We stay with them for a long while and then decide to return.

Studying

Here is the calf, he also checked us out and was then lead away

Part of the pod

Later, at around 4 p.m. I spot them again. This time they come from the north. Charlotte and I are together this time. We meet up with them swiftly. This is a big group of about 20 individuals. Here are the huge dolphins that I saw last week. They are really huge, and when you are right in the middle of 20 of these you feel quite small.
I spot yesterdays male with the cord still attached. I wished he would let me open that knot.

The moment we meet the whole group turns around and moves back up the coast. It really looks as if the first group met up with the second and told them about their encounter and decided to show us to the second group. The big pod literally takes us in and swims and plays with us. I don´t have words for this.
The dolphins seems to me so much closer to us than in the past. They come so close that often only centimeters remain between us and them. They study us and are without any fear. They engage in games. Still we have never touched any of them !

When swimming with dolphins it is best to dive down so they can see you entirely. You will also be on the same height and be part of their group instead of hanging above them and watching them like a lamp hanging from the ceiling. The trouble is that one is already out of breath from swimming with them. So when you dive down you have little breath left and the muscles scream for more oxygene. I´m doing apne exercises and I know that when your lungs start hurting that you have at least 50% more oxygene left. Helas, we are not built for water, this is a real limitation on us humans. Sometimes I wished I was a dolphin myself.

Battery problems again, so too few pictures.

Playing 

Hello there !

At around 6 p.m. the pod returns going down south. It is difficult to spot them. They are hunting and come up to breathe at long intervals. They are fast. No encounter.

Caught in a cord

Marble dolphin shot by Charlotte

Another dolphin day. The pod passed by at around 14h, dolphin calves included. The mating season seems to be over. No huge dolphins around.
So when we dip in we get a warm welcome by the "distractors". A group of 4 or 5 big dolphins comes, I recognize each one of them, and I see, they recognize me as well. We swim slowly together. Eventually two and then one dolphin remain. The dolphin mothers with their babies have turned into another direction. Once they are far enough the last "distractor" vanishes and catches up with the pod. We are alone again.

Welcome, I know you

Add caption

Later, at around 16h CHarlotte spots more dolphins. We take the kayak and move out. There they come, a lonely dolphin pair. They travel alone, far from the group. Love !

They are very friendly. I think I met both before. The big male has a cord stuck to his tail fin. It looks like somebody tried to catch him. Or maybe he got caught in a fishing net ?
Anyway, we swim together. Charlotte and I take turns.
Here is a great shot while the female takes a breath, and there is another when this big male bottlenose dolphin poops.

They stayed in the bay for at least one hour. At 18h the main pod returned north.

Dolphin poop

The male dolphin had a cord tightly stuck to his tail

The female comes up to breathe, the male´s cord clearly visible

Yet another dolphin dip

I thought it could not get any better, but it did !

Lots of short clips

These video clips are the result of an error. I thought I was taking pictures but had pushed the wrong button. So it was a surprise to find these short clips. Some of them are great ! Enjoy !
This is from April 13th !

Ralf follows the dolphin pod

An amazing dip with 20 huge adult dolphins

This video gives a great idea of what we experienced in the water. Although I had to cut out some parts due to my stupid head movement it is still quite long. The quality in video mode is not great, but well hey, what can you expect from a mask-video-cam ?
You´ll see how individual dolphins approach to check me out. Then there is the injured dolphin from yesterday´s session and the dolphin couple that appears in the blog quite often.

Best encounter ever !

In the middle of the pod

I didn´t think it could get any better but today was so mind bogglingly beautiful that I have to revise my initial opinion. What happened today was the best dolphin encounter ever ! EVER !

My childhood friend Ralf was paddling alone a little in front of the beach when I saw the dolphin fins poke out of the water at a fair distance. I took the fins and masks and ran to the nearby restaurant island and called him to pick me up. "Where are they ?" he shouted and I pointed them out to him. 

Soon we were in the middle of the group. We recognized yesterdays group but there was also another new pod ! Two pods ! It is as if the first pod wanted to show these humans (us) to the other group. And these approximately 20 dolphins were huge, there were few females among them, certainly no calves. These kind of dolphins are usually out in the open. I have never seen so many big males by the coast.

How do you know it is a male ? Well, from time to time they get excited and swim with an erection.

Dolphin dick

While we paddled next to them some dolphins hop out of the water to check us out, we could see their eye look at us. Normally when dolphins come up to breathe only their fin pokes out. Looking above the water requires a little more effort.

Here they are ! Adult dolphins can stay below for up to 15min without breathing

I went in first. I felt a little awkward, like the very first time I swam with dolphins. This dolphins were so huge. Would their welcome me ? Was there really no risk involved ? I mean, they could finish me off in 5 seconds flat without blinking. 

But fortunately they didn´t. 

They swam very slowly and allowed us to follow them. When we got tired out they would turn around and allow us to catch up. While we all moved forward different individuals would turn around and swim past from behind at a very close distance to check us out from head to toe. One after another !

Then the one with the injury on his lower jaw came and we swam circles around each other until I got dizzy. It was like his way of saying hello. A game we had played before. You can see him and his mate  in the film clip. Its the same couple that we met many times before !

Later the same injured dolphin that we had met yesterday followed me for awhile. This one was huge and very friendly. We swam eye to eye for a while at 50cm distance. This is a big guy. Like him many others of these big ones starred damaged tail fins or other kinds of scars. They look like gladiators that have fought hard battles out in the open sea. Who knows what dangers they have surmounted....

We were surrounded by dolphins. Below is yesterday´s dolphin with the injury.

They all starred some scars like some spartian gladiators

There is intelligence looking out of that eye !

They got really close  

Their movement were very slow, like in slow motion, to allow us to follow them

Eventually I´m out of breath and Ralf goes in.

He hit his fist into his palm making sounds which intrigued the dolphins. The came back and circled around him.  

Ralf gets back into the kayak while the group swims on. At a distance of ca 50m we see a dolphin stick his head out of the water vertically. Where did the humans go ?

We paddled back to the group. And went in again...

I had taking a lot of pictures and decide to film... having the camera integrated into the mask is quite handy. Too bad the picture jumps with every movement. Still, this film gives a great idea of what we saw. The interaction was so intense. 

While we swam together you could hear them communicating, which they only do when the feel unthreatened and relaxed.

2km down from our beach we let the dolphins continue their trip and we race back on our kayak. Back on the beach my arms hang down like dead vegetable.

Ralf and I reflect on what we just witnessed:

This was so fantastic ! So amazingly amazing ! So cool ! Wow !

Nature at its best !

Ralf from Germany

Welcome !

Another wind tunnel day. A strong steady wind blows down south. The Red Sea is angry.

My old childhood friend Ralf is on a visit. We decide to go to the sea during the week while the rest of the world works. The beach is all ours, there is no other soul around. 

Ralf brought two extreme kites with him and is excited about the wind. One of the kites is so big, if you don´t know how it works it will quickly take you to Timbuktu. You need strong biceps to control these kites. Ralf, former world champion in dragon boat racing, has his hands full.

Then I see them: Dolphins !

We hop into the kayak and go. Now, this is quite surprising, the dolphins stop and wait for us !

We get close and they stay right with us. I go in.... 

Chasing each other in circles

Now this is a group of 8 male dolphins. There are no calves. This is great news. This group will be fun !

The dolphins are curious, come and go. 

One dolphins comes very close, I recognize him. He is my friend with his scared lower jaw, the one I have on most of my pictures. He welcomes me literally. We swim together, I follow him. 

The dolphins are very relaxed.  

Following the pod

Then Ralf goes in. I think he is thrilled. He hadn´t imagined that you get so close that if you stretch out your hand you could touch them.

Ralf watching the pod

They returned again and again...

...and truly engaged

And then there is a huge male dolphin. He has a bad injury on his back. This size of dolphin is more  to be seen in the open sea. Did the group go back to the safety of the coast because of this injury ?
It looks as if this injury was caused by a fishing net.
Now in spite of this injury this beautiful 3m big dolphin is very curious and swam next to us - self assured and friendly.

At this point the dolphins open their communication channels again. You can hear the very subtle whistling or vibration.

This enormous male starred an ugly injury

Then Ralf goes back in and I follow him in the kayak. This way we move down the coast for approximately 1500m. Ralf is without a wetsuit and getting cold. We go in one last time together.

My friend with the scared jaw tries to catch a supermarkt plastic bag with his tail fin then picks it up with his front fin and pulls it along. So him as well is capable of this... Eventually he looses it and we both go after the bag. I pick up the bag and drag it along just like him.

It looks like he got caught in a fishing net

There were 8 adults and no calfs

They swam slowly to allow us to follow

Very friendly

After a phatastic and very long session with the dolphins its time to say good-bye. We turn around. Ralf is freezing. We go against the wind. Now paddling with him is like having a rocket engine in the trunk, like kayaking with Obelix (not Asterix). We both give everything and when we finally work ourselves back to our beach I´m completely exhausted. Ralf takes a hot shower and then does more kiting....

This was perfect !