Today I woke up with 2 parts of my brain having an argument.
Inner child: Dolphins, Dolphins, I’m gong to see some Dolphins. Yay beautiful Dolphins
Rational Adult: Calm down, you may not see any.
Inner child: Yes I will (stamps foot) - the boys on the boat said they will find them for me - THEY PROMISED!
Rational Adult: Don’t be stupid, they can’t control where the Dolphins are and they didn’t promise, they said they will try.
Inner child: You always want to spoil my fun. Misery guts!
Rational Adult: Remember what happened in New Zealand.
Inner child: Well yes - but this is different - those Dolphins didn’t want to be found. These are Maldives dolphins and I just know they will come, because I love them so much!
Rational Adult: Well just don’t get your hopes up OK
Inner child: I’m going to send messages to the Dolphins telepathically and we will find them - you’ll see.
Rational Adult: (FacePalm)
Inner Child: (sings) It’s Dolphin day today, I’m sooooo happy, Dolphins, Dolphins, DOLPHINS.
Bari offers a Dolphin watching boat trip on his list of activities, but makes it crystal clear that there are no guarantees, which of course there can never be with wild animals.
And that’s absolutely the way it should be.
Get ready - I’m about to get on my soapbox……….
I am completely against captivity for all marine mammals (well pretty much all animals really - unless there are about to go extinct and there is no other option)
The human obsession with stealing animals from the wild and then breeding them in an artificial environment, for “entertainment” drives me nuts!!
I won’t turn this into a lecture about why captivity is so wrong, but if you have enjoyed my blog, please do me one little favour.
Before you visit a Marine Park, a swim with dolphin program or in fact any animal attraction, please do a little bit of research on how these places operate, where they get the animals from, how the animals normally live in wild and the effect captivity has on these wonderful creatures. I highly recommend 2 excellent documentaries - “The Cove” and “Blackfish”
So as desperate as I was to see Dolphins, I also kept my expectations firmly in check.
Nevertheless, I was going to make sure I was prepared…..
I arrived at the harbour with all my snorkelling gear ( just in case) and all 4 camera’s, along with spare batteries and SD cards. I also had some accessories for the GO Pro - the bright Yellow float (because I knew we would be in very deep water) and a long telescopic pole ( to lower the camera into the water from the boat and maybe get some underwater shots).
The boys had a bit of a chuckle at all my equipment, but at least it was clear to everyone aboard that I take my Dolphin watching very seriously indeed.
As we left the harbour I let the boys know, that if we found a pod, I would love them all forever. They nodded (presumably thinking - "this woman is nuts") and off we went!
I have tremendous admiration for people who offer these kind of tours, because to me, it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. There’s this huge expanse of ocean with a fair amount of wave activity, making it difficult to spot anything and given that Dolphins can dive for up to 15 minutes before surfacing for air, it’s a wonder anyone ever sees them at all
So you can imagine my surprise and sheer delight when less that 10 minutes into the trip, both the boat guys shouted
“look there - Dolphins”.
I jumped up to look where they were pointing and couldn’t see anything at first. Then I spotted them - tiny specks way off in the distance.
If we hadn’t still been travelling at speed I would have rushed over to give them all a hug, but instead shouted “you clever, clever, wonderful, people - thank you thank you, thank you”. They tried to get the boat as close as possible but the pod of about 8 or 9 were really motoring and spending very little time at the surface, so it was tricky. But I didn’t care. just to get a glimpse of these magnificent creatures swimming wild and free, filled me with joy.
When they disappeared from view, the boys all stood up, scanning the water and then one of them would shout “coming up coming up” so I could have my camera ready as they surfaced. I took literally hundreds of pictures and got a few good ones. Adam went into the water with my underwater camera and the go pro and managed to get a few shots of them swimming below, but both the dolphins and the boat were both moving around quite fast, so there was absolutely no point in me going in. It didn’t matter, I was deliriously happy to have just seen them.
After a while, Ahmed asked if I had seen enough and would I like to snorkel, because there was a very nice reef nearby.
I agreed because the dolphins were moving away from us very quickly and I didn’t want the boat to chase them.
I’m very glad I took my gear because the reef was lovely - completely different from our house reef. The water was really clear and there was virtually no current, which equals perfect snorkelling conditions.
Almost immediately we spotted a beautiful turtle - this day was turning out to be very special indeed.
I spent a lovely 30 minutes exploring the reef spotting fish species I hadn't seen before, so despite very wrinkly fingers, I could happily have stayed there for hours.
Back at the harbour, we arranged to go out again on Thursday, this time to another reef where I was promised more sharks!!!! Oh Joy.
After lunch I started wading through the millions of pictures I had taken that morning. It took a while, because we never got particularly close to the Dolphins, so I had to zoom in to every photo to see whether the shot was worth keeping. Most of them went to the trash, but the ones I kept are lovely.
After spending a bit too much time on the computer, I decided I needed a late afternoon snorkel.
At the beginning of this holiday I was meticulous about checking everything before I entered the water, so I don’t know if I’d just got lazy or a bit blasé, but I entered the water without double checking the battery compartment on my underwater camera were closed properly.
It wasn’t - and despite lifting it straight back out of the water, it was too late, I’d drowned my camera!
I rushed back up the beach, opened the camera to take out the battery and SD card and Anna (from the family mentioned in my last post) suggested I leave it open, in the sun, to try to dry it out.
Despite being completed gutted at my own stupidity, I decided to go for a quick snorkel anyway - to try to cheer myself up.
As is always the way, because I had no camera, there were loads of brilliant photo opportunities but later Anna said that she would share their photos so that I didn’t miss out. We now have a shared iCloud album and between us we have some cracking pictures!
I didn’t stay out long, because I was anxious to get back, get the hair-dryer on the camera and then deposit it in a bag of rice.
Back at Holiday Village Retreat, I found Kingsley, the chef and explained what I wanted to do. He came out of the kitchen with an industrial sized bag of rice and I thanked him profusely but said I didn’t really need that much. Back he went and returned with a plastic box full, which was perfect (apart from me spilling rice all over the floor of my room as I was trying to work the camera into the box).
Later on, I did some checking on the internet and it wasn't good news; there were tales of woe from people all over the net who had done the same thing. What I gathered from this, was even if I manage to dry it all out, the salt water will corrode all the metal parts, so the chances of it ever working again were zero! (It’s been in rice for 5 days now and is still showing no signs of life)
Until now, I’d only used the Go Pro for taking the odd video and to be perfectly frank, hadn't been terribly thrilled with it. It was great for our White water kayaking and Lottie’s “Extreme Swing” in New Zealand, but until I ruined it, my Olympus Tough took way better pictures and video.
However, now I had no choice. I had to get to grips with it and find out what it was capable of.
So I spent the evening reading the manual on line, had a little play and worked out how to switch from movie to single photo mode and back again. I tried the “burst” function and ended up with 25 photos of the shower door, so decided that was probably overkill for my needs.
I found out that it doesn’t work well in low light ( no more late afternoon snorkels for me) and that there is no zoom function ( so fat chance of getting shots of anything in the distance) but it was all I had now - so I needed to be positive and make it work!
Despite the doom and gloom horror stories I’d read on the internet, I was still optimistic that the other camera may be able to be resuscitated, but decided that the next day was going to be “get to grips with the Go Pro day!!!