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The Euphoria of a Wild Dolphin Encounter

We long to repeat moments with dolphins. There are encounters so intimate, revealing, touching and exquisite, but all we can do is relive them in memory. Dolphin memories haunt otherwise mundane lives. Dolphin memories remain fresh and perpetuate a desire for more. We want more! Greedy for more of the best and more from even the best. Just a hair’s breath closer and she would’ve crushed me! Just a daring, soft move and she would’ve been embraced in my arms. A little longer moment, a slip through the crack of the cosmic egg, and we would have known each other transparently, as understood as clearly as with anyone ever before…

Touched, known, heard, understood, embraced, loved, healed, and held by a dolphin – the closest to heaven an earthly encounter may offer with someone without a name.

No name for her or him other than the generalized Dolphin. No word for the level of trust and acceptance, the strangeness yet familiarity; the pleasure and incomprehension mix until you must Let Go.

You may be held by a dolphin’s gaze, or frozen by a dolphin’s warning. Time may stop or slow. The world may shift in your encounter with this equal and alien sentience as you recognize the truth beyond words. The dolphin’s mind is stretchy and may turn inside out to enclose yours. Neuron to neuron, understanding is revealed but not explained; experienced, but not defined; felt intimately, but not proven; and in that moment, we accept. In a rush, our mastery is dwarfed. In a whole, our competition is naught. Enclosed by the dolphin’s mind, we shrink to one neuron of intelligence and one synopsis of wisdom – linking to the periphery of the dolphin’s immensity. This one synapse is pure joy, pure heart, pure sensuality, aching for a response, aching for the arch over to speed down dolphin body. We become one neuron, Go or No Go, one bridge to cross and all the fire wanting to reach the other side. Desire hope vision nerves, tuned to the synapse – “Go!”

“Hear me! Feel me! See me! Know me!” — Pleas for recognition, understanding, acknowledgement.

A god in the waters swimming circles around us. Hear our fervent prayers! Be with me! I am yours! You are what I have missed my entire life! You are what we can never be! You are power and grace and silky smoothness. You are love and trust and the vibrancy of Mother Ocean. You are as we would wish others to be – playful, carefree, hopeful, daring, irreverent, nude and sensual, flirtative and respectful.

No hands, no commands, no reins, no control.

Freedom without prison.

Masters without rulers.

Cooperation without coercion.

Voices without conversation.

Introversion without alienation.

Introspection enjoyed en masse.

Let’s go within, and within we will find each other, togetherness.

Trinities of joined heart and mind.

And the human yearns to reach into that matrix of joined trinities.

Humans who have been touched by the reality of dolphins long to bring that awareness to human life. Bonded by shared dolphin contact, we glimpse the closeness of the pod in our midst. We resolve to reoccurances of the touch of dolphinness – within ourselves, with each other. Then plunge into the sea to seek it again in its original state – among dolphins. Among dolphins in a state of grace, among dolphins while moods converge to bring once again the intimacy, the intimacy of a dolphin’s non-physical touch.

Not-quite-physical contact with dolphins is like nonverbal communication between people. In most wild encounters, it is the entirety of the experience – we have no physical contact, and yet the language only suggested by movement is rich and complete. Accepting that the dolphins won’t, hardly, touch us, yet knowing their highly sensual nature must yearn to feel our touch as we do theirs, is a constant tension of dolphin encounters. Touch separated by millimeters is exquisite, flirtatious, rewarding, yearned. The dissolution of those millimeters, firm contact, is the unrelinquished love. Skin to skin, a fleeting brush of dolphin skin, is the lure.

For the most part, the most intimate of dolphin encounters is a solitary experience. Other humans have vanished. The only consciousness is of the dolphin. Rarely do humans join the midst of a dolphin pod while holding hands with other humans. Rarely do human minds connect and then connect with the pod while swimming. While swimming, we usually reside deeply in our separate minds and bodies, within our own desires, experiences and encounters. All consciousness of others dissipates in the wake.

We are fortunate in Hawaii to often be in the midst of a couple hundred dolphin individuals, in clear, warm waters, with many more dolphins than people. Even if we enter the water with a large group of people from a boat, we often find ourselves alone with the intense attention of a few dolphins. People and dolphins scatter into small groups with a wide variety of experiences happening all at once. Your own little pod may stay together and within sight for an hour. Twenty people can easily get separated among 200 dolphins.

For some of us involved in introducing people to dolphins, we are satisfied to facilitate the encounters using the best of our abilities balanced with deep respect for the dolphin culture. We are happy when everyone has had a lasting eye to eye meeting. We use what we know to bring the dolphins to people, using gentle persuasion to elevate the encounter. We build towards longer, more interactive encounters by imbuing people with respect and patience, by responding appropriately to our interpretation of body behavior from the dolphins.

It is important to recognize and respond to communication efforts from the dolphins. If we interpret a tail slap from a dolphin to be directed at us and indicating a pressure one of them feels from us, by giving them more space we will be returning a message that their behavior has affects on us.

Interacting with dolphins in the wild, we have opportunities to communicate uniquely and intuitively. We can avoid the tendency to try and train wild dolphins or to block what our minds and hearts tell us. Gaining and using new knowledge about dolphin lives, needs and challenges, we can pursue deepening relationships with spontaneity and respect, promoting benefits for both species.

My most ecstatic event with wild dolphins opened a door with new purpose for my life beyond it.

I have been euphoric swimming with dolphins, alone and far from our terrestrial world. Bursting in laughter, saturated with revelation, honored with extreme closeness and even touch, I have basked in a euphoric halo, a cone of grace surrounds us, a peace of heaven in the sears, dolphins, like my long lost family, embrace me. These experiences filled me with more yearning to be so close. Solitary swims and lengthy encounters were sought and appreciated.

But it was ecstatic moments with an autistic boy, fins rising around us, which fully opened a new door for me.

To read about this experience involving autism and dolphins click here

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Dolphin Facts 2 – How to Draw Dolphins – Facts About Dolphins and Their Behavior

How to Draw Dolphins –
Facts About Dolphins & Their Behavior

by Roberta Goodman

Dolphin Facts Continued . . .

Read Part 1 here

 

Dolphin Facts 12

 

The flexible dolphin easily bends to the side, but their neck is an extension of the rest of the spine, and the head doesn’t have independent mobility. If you float directly above a rising dolphin, the dolphin turns slightly sideways to see you. Pectoral fins tilt to steer and balance the dolphin and spread out flat to reach for other dolphins on either side.

Dolphin Facts 13

 

Dolphins appear quite similar to one another until you look closely at scars on the skin and nicks on the fins.

 

Dolphin Facts 14

 

Patterns in their bands of color differentiate dolphins too. Dolphins have dark stripes on their faces that I call eye makeup. Some dolphins have a bit more makeup than others.

 

Dolphin Facts 15

 

In profile, mature males have a bit of a bump in their genital region.

 

Dolphin Facts 16

 

Females have a streamlined ventral profile. Dolphins have genital slits, one for the genitals and one for the anus.

 

Dolphin Facts 16

 

Females have two puckers that are nipple slits, one on either side of their genital slit. This is where you will see a baby nursing, turning sideways and briefly placing the end of his beak against the pucker.

 

Dolphin Facts 17

 

The baby’s tongue curls and the mom squirts very rich milk into its mouth.

But even full-sized dolphins will be seen with one’s beak pressed against the other’s genital region.

 

Dolphin Facts 18

 

Dolphins mate belly to belly. They swim belly to belly quite often, and use the surface to add the pressure of weight to the dolphin on top.

Moms may steer their babies by pushing them to the side or even lifting them out of the water. A mom may hold a baby underwater to increase his interval of breathing, extending his capacity to hold his breath.

 

Dolphin Facts 19

 

Dolphins slap the surface in communication. A dolphin may turn upside down and smack the surface with his tail repeatedly. As a dolphin dives, it may give a light tap on the surface with its tail. They may warn with a sideways swipe of the tail or abruptly smack the surface.

Dolphins also head slap the surface, or breach and land sideways.

 

Dolphin Facts 20

 

These communications have many meanings and must be looked at in context. After resting, by swimming in lazy circles in a shallow bay, Spinner dolphins may begin breaching as the pod wakes up. The pod is alerted and prepares to move out to sea. No one is left behind.

 

Image 10

 

Spinner dolphins spin – they leap free of the water and twist and turn unpredictably.

 

Image 22

 

Spotted dolphins may jump 20 feet clear of the water. Dolphins porpoise as they travel quickly.

 

Image 23

 

They jump off the top of waves and surf its face. You may see a whole line of dolphins surfing a wave while traveling across the ocean. Waves roll along at 35 knots and dolphins add speed with very little effort by riding the waves.

Small fish may swim near dolphins. Schools of bait fish part at their approach. Some dolphins may have a remora, a sucker fish, attached to their body. The remoras move around the dolphin’s body, eating skin parasites, and sometimes leaving scars. A dolphin may breach repeatedly, almost crazily, trying to dislodge a remora.

 

Image 24

 

Manta rays, with wing spans of 10 to 16 feet, are comfortable in the presence of a swirling band of active young dolphins.

Sharks can occasionally slide by, neither bothering the other, but the dolphins remain absolutely alert to its presence.

Dolphins are gregarious. How many dolphins you might see together depends on the species and location, but super-groups of perhaps thousands of any kind or even a mixture of species can occasionally be sighted. In Hawaii, Bottlenose generally travel in small groups of 2-10. Spinners are rarely seen in such small numbers and are more often in groups of 50-600. Spotted dolphins can be in small pods or in pods of 300 or so. Uncountable, dolphin numbers can only be estimated in pods this large. The large pod splits off into sub-pods. Twenty-five may swoop by in formation and continue to rise to breathe and fall to rest together.

 

Image 631

 

Sometimes the species mix. A few Spotteds may enter a pod of Spinners. When the Humpback whales come to the islands in the winter, Spinner dolphins can play around them for hours. Bottlenose dolphins are often seen with the Humpbacks. I have filmed four Bottlenose dolphins riding a Humpback’s bow wave on its snout! They looked like whiskers, so small in close comparison to the giant.

(All of the dolphin images used in this article are available for purchase. Contact Roberta for details.)

 

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All images Copyright (c) Roberta Goodman. All Rights Reserved.

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How to Draw Dolphins – Facts About Dolphins and Their Behavior

How to Draw Dolphins –
Facts About Dolphins & Their Behavior

by Roberta Goodman

How do you draw dolphins so it seems as though you are swimming beside them observing their lives?

The lives of dolphins in the wild have different perspectives than the lives of Bottlenose dolphins under human care. Although a very popular postcard picture, generally only captive dolphins bring their heads out of the water with their mouths open, and make noises in air. These dolphins are begging for fish or otherwise communicating with their human handlers. Wild dolphins acclimated to being given fish from boats may lift their head with their mouth open, but feeding wild dolphins is illegal and changes their natural behavior.

To learn about dolphins in the wild, you must find out what they are doing under the water.

Dolphins are very social, interactive and playful. Their moods and activities vary during the day. Most of the life of a dolphin, besides hunting, is spent within 60 feet of the surface. As all mammals do, they must breathe air. Dolphins generally come up to breathe every 2 to 5 minutes. In clear water, the sunlight shoots rays right down through this surface layer.

 

Dolphin Facts 1

If you are floating on the ocean, rays of light converge below you in a wavering point far down in the deep blue. Sunlight shatters on a dolphin’s body into brilliant patterns of sweeping intersecting lines, sparkling glints flitting on the dolphin’s skin. The dark cape on a dolphin’s back is etched in diamonds and stripes, flowing with the waves rolling across the ocean overhead. As dolphins dive deeper, the bands of light disappear and the water darkens. Reds and yellows are lost to the blues and greens of the sea. Dolphins depend on their sonar to see in the gloom, even in pitch blackness, and into distances beyond their eyesight.

 

Dolphin Facts 2

 

Dolphins have very good eyesight in air. When boats are near, they often raise their body when breathing so that their eyes lift out of the water.

 

Dolphin Facts 3

 

Their ears, almost undetectable pinholes, are then exposed to sounds in air, sounds which are muffled under the water. Sound doesn’t travel far crossing the air-water interface. But underwater, sound travels further and faster than in air. Sound travels so quickly underwater, that it reaches both of our human ears at virtually the same time, making it difficult for us to precisely localize dolphin whistles. Sometimes the dolphin will release a bubble stream while whistling.

We could recognize the sound source better if our ears were separated by 5 feet! Dolphins have a different physiology of hearing which is much more precise at listening to and locating underwater sounds.

There are pelagic dolphin species and pods and nearshore dolphins. Nearshore dolphins can travel, rest, and play in shallow water, gliding above multicolored coral or white sand. A sandy bottom turns the water a gorgeous turquoise.

Dolphin Facts 4I

Dolphin Facts 5

 

Dolphins in 20 feet of clear water over a sandy bottom are suspended in translucent blues and aqua.

The ocean’s surface, looking up from below, is reflective. Double dolphins appear in a distorted mirror image as they rise to breathe. The dorsal fin slices the mirror’s clarity, leaving a thin wake.

 

Dolphin Facts 7

Dolphin dorsal fins move up and down, lower and higher through the surface.

Dolphin Facts 8

 

Shark fins generally move snakelike across their path when relaxing at the surface.

The dolphin’s back breaks into air and the blowhole expels air. You may not see the puff of water and air, or the dolphin may release air in a bubble that throws water aside before the inhalation.

Dolphin Facts 9

 

TEPUHI – “dolphin” in some Polynesian languages –
TEPU – exhale – HAY – inhale, the dolphin’s breath.
Say it while exhaling and inhaling explosively. This is one dolphin name. Tepuhi, said with the breath.
After three or so breaths, the dolphin rolls into a dive, submerging again.

Dolphin Facts 9

 

Underwater, dolphins are seen diving together, in slightly staggered unison. Synchronicity is common in dolphin pods. Dolphins rise together and dive together. They swim in zigzags together.

Dolphin Facts 10

 

Small groups are united in touch. Fins stroke fins. Fins stroke bodies, feathery brushes across another’s throat, chest, belly, and genitals.

Dolphin Facts 11

 

Fins hold hands as dolphins glide side by side, half asleep, eyes closed.

 

Dolphin Facts 12

 

Dolphins see in stereo just a short ways in front of them and below their chests. You can hide behind a dolphin’s tail and the dolphin must arch one way and then the other to peer at you from either eye as you follow right behind him. This is a fun dolphin game.

Click this link to continue learning facts about dolphins, their behavior, and more.

 

 

(All of the dolphin images used in this article are available for purchase. Contact Roberta for details.)

Return from Facts about Dolphins to the Wild Dolphin Swims Hawaii home page.

All images Copyright (c) Roberta Goodman. All Rights Reserved.

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