Hawaii - June 2003
From Jade’s Diary
After many months of planning Dad (Stephen) and myself have finally landed at our first stop over - Hawaii.
We are here to look at dolphin swim operators that we have heard about in Australia and of course to swim with the Spinner dolphins.
Day 1
We went to Wyland Kalakava Center (in Waikiki) where we got to see the most amazing dolphin sculpture and painting by Wyland and other extremely gifted artists. (www.wylandgalleries.com – for futher info).
Sculpture by Wyland.
Day 2
We went to watch two captured dolphin shows. Why? There is a lot to learn from these type of shows and the more you go to the more you understand, especially if you hang around after the show is finished.
The photo below shows the pen in which these show dolphins are kept in.
Day 3
Picked up at motel and taken to the Western side of Oahu Island, where we boarded a large catamaran to go and see the spinner dolphins and spinner dolphins we saw – a pod of about 50-60 dolphins. They were swimming around a charter sailing catamaran (called Leyd Back) it was idle and there were swimmers at the back of the vessel.
As we got closer we could see the dolphins moving away from the sailing cat and past us, undeterred our skipper (Bob) started to reverse over the pod then forward and reverse again, we could not believe what we were seeing.
Day 4
Caught a bus to the Western side to find a couple who do dolphins swims that we had heard so much about back in Australia – Armin and Tori both Marine Biologists.
After asking around the travel shops we were unable to find them. The only dolphin cruise they knew about was the cruise we had been on the day before. Dad knew around about where they operated from and so we decided to stay in that area for the night. After a few phone calls back to Australia we had the contact details and got onto a dolphin swim with them the next day.
Day 5
We did not tell Armin or Tori what we do in Australia and that we had heard of them, we wanted to see them do their normal dolphin approaches and speeches/briefs without anything special for our benefits.
Their vessel “Island Spirit” a sailing catamaran headed out of the harbour as we were on deck receiving our brief, which took about 15 minutes. When finished Tori said “I hope you are all ready as the dolphins are just over there”. 50 metres away a pod about 50 strong was moving in an anti clockwise direction around the boat.
The front deck way was lowered (steps into the water) and of course Dad was the first in. He waited for me and we headed in the opposite direction to the other swimmers because the dolphins were circling. The water visibility was around 15 metres, we got to see these amazing dolphins up close - watching them leaping, spinning and wobbling in the air.
We were in the water with the dolphins for about 30 minutes. Then Armin took us to a special place “the Turtle cleaning rock” where, of course, turtles go to get cleaned. As we left the dolphins escorted us for a while.
The next swim I could not wait for, I had never swam with turtles before, but that soon changed. As we entered the water we could see three large turtles just hovering over a large piece of coral with small fish feeding off them.
Amazing as the turtles were, my thoughts went back to the spinner dolphins, just the way they leap into the air and their behaviour is very different to any other dolphin I have seen.
 Conclusion
Dolphin cruises in Hawaii are very good but a “Code of Practice” needs to be worked out by the current operators and the Government needs to issue strict licences to current operators and release no more. (The spinner dolphins need their rest period).
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