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Flirtation changed to magic when an adult bottlenose swam over and glided right beside me. His iridescent gray dorsal skin melted into a pearly-white underbelly. We swam along eye to eye, and I felt a shiver ran through my body-not a cold shiver but a warm one- as he scanned me with his echolocation sonar. He always stayed just three inches away, even mimicking me when I surfaced to clear my mask. I swam straight and level, hoping this would maintain our fragile bond. Then I realized the bond wasn't fragile at all, and he wanted me to swim in curves and ellipses. We were off! No matter how or where I swam, he paced me. Even when I did corkscrew dives, spiraling downward, my dolphin spiraled right beside me, always three inches away. We swam that way for 20 minutes. It was precisely what I had come for. I was suffused with the immense happiness of having come. Everything unnecessary fell away leaving only an ineffable peace. I was held in the palm of God's hand. The odyssey had begun when seven friends and I rendezvoused at West End, a beautiful little Bahamian fishing town where dogs doze next to the marine supply store, kids play soccer in the street, and aging fishing boats with flaking paint bob at their moorings. George Washington declared Grand Bahama "the isle of perpetual June," and one afternoon we hopped aboard a 74 foot ketch, cleared the harbor jetty, and threaded our way through the islets, cays and reefs, beneath a cirrus-streaked sky, on our dolphin odyssey. Our gracious old sailboat had plenty of polished brass, teak decking, and a full suit of white sails aloft. And silence. Only the wind in the canvas, the creak of rigging in the swivel blocks, and bow's swish as it sliced through the waters that inspired Ernest Hemingway's Islands in The Stream. We had 3-4 dolphin swims each day, and often the dolphins were up before us, leaping exuberantly, their silver-white bodies glistening in the morning sunlight. Each pod was different, but our very favorite was a joyful group of spotted dolphins who were always up on the surface, greeting us with leaps and whistles. They became our best friends. One of my favorite experiences was with a large female spotted who swam along side me, at about arm's length. I hummed a tone as a way of saying hi and her response was an extended series of soft clicks. After a while her response clicks came more quickly until we overlapped in a duet. We just swam along, humming and clicking. Zoologist Konrad Lorenz' best-selling book, King Solomon's Ring, draws its title from the monarch whose ring allowed him to converse with animals. At that moment I knew I wore the ring. Dolphins love to play games. There was one juvenile in our favorite pod, who I named Rocket. He would dive straight down with me, as deep as I could go. At the bottom he'd wait until I turned around, then we'd race each other to the surface. He'd let me start first, and sometime I'd tease him with twitchy false starts. Rocket would always win of course, rushing past and shooting out of the water above me with boundless exuberance. With each experience I felt reborn, and infused with great joy. The bond between humans and the dolphin is ancient. The Greeks immortalized the dolphin for its benevolence, and their dolphin deities calmed the seas and cleared the skies. Coins with dolphin motifs were placed in the hands of the dead to guide them on their afterlife journey. In the Christian pantheon, the dolphin represents rebirth, by guiding man in the seas and allowing him to return to land cleansed of his sins. Dolphins are known for their healing abilities, which occurs when their sonar waves pass through human bodies causing a phenomenon called cavitation, a rippling effect in matter whereby the resonance of the body is changed. Whatever scientific explanation, each time it occurred was like receiving a relaxing two hour massage in a few seconds. As we sailed back toward West End lighthouse in the lowering twilight, I knew the greatest gift of the dolphins' was their sharing their joyful, exuberant spirit. It was a Caribbean treasure more valuable than any pirate's chest filled with doubloons. John Huddleston writes on
travel and foreign affairs. He is also the Contributing Editor
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I stood on the sailboat's deck, and gazed
out over the shimmering turquoise waters of the Bahamas, before donning
my mask and slipping into that warm luminous supportive cosmos. A
shinning plane of mercury overhead marked the boundary back to the world
of hard edges and right angles. Lacey patterns of surface waves dappled
the sandy ocean floor, and sunlight reflecting off the smooth bottom
shinned back up at me. I was on a week's pilgrimage to swim with
Caribbean dolphins. It didn't take long. Swoosh- a pair of grayish-white
spotted dolphins appeared from nowhere, zipping past excitedly, all
whirs and clicks. A juvenile paused to show off, spiraling and
pirouetting around me before disappearing with a tail flip.
