During our Hawaii weekend, my travel companion wanted to go swimming with the dolpins. I had never done this but we found a great little snorkel boat tour company who offered dolphin encounters and we decided to go. I had no clue what to expect!
The morning we were heading out a friend texted me to tell me that in Mexico they would not allow pregnant women to swim with the dolphins for fear that the dolpins would be more attrached to the pregnant person and could potentially cause harm to the baby. We asked our tour director if this was the policy in Hawaii and he said no. Apparently, the dolpins can detect the baby's heartbeat through sonar and therefore may be more attracted to a pregnant women but as we were swimming in the middle of the Ocean with wild dolphins and not the penned up dolpins at a hotel, they found nothing wrong with me going in. So I Did!
We had to cruise along the coast of Kona for about 15 minutes before spotting a pod of Spinner dolphins, but once we found them, we were all excited. The boat driver and director said this was a big pod and we were very lucky. We all donned our snorkeling gear (There were five of us total) and followed the two young boys who were our guides in the water. I as nervous...but tried to calm myself down as this would be better for the dolphins to swim normally with us. As we got out a bit away from the boat, we could see the dolphins swimming all around us. It was magical. They were all around, swimming in pairs or in groups. We were all in awe!
For a while we swam around, looking for them, seeing a group glide togeher below us and through us. And after a while we saw a group playing near the surface around a man paddle surfing with his dog. As we swam near them, we attracted a group of about 5 dolpins, with one special little guy in the lead, as their curiousity drew them closer to us. Immediately, they started circling us, the one special one seemed intrigued and intent on finding out more about us. He (or she) was literally in touching distance from our small group. We all swam around with him and the others surrounding us. They would play a bit and I was sure they were coming after my baby. But there was no danger, it was purely playful and curiousity and possibly protection of a mother and her baby. After about five minutes, our friend started swimming around with Jessica - side-by-side - before he decided to move on with his pod. We were all in wonder of the amazing wonder of nature and dolphins. As we made our way back to the boat, the driver said "Thank the pregnant lady" for the play time with the dolpins. And our guides told us they had never seen dolpins circle around for that long. While the dolphin never came up to me directly, I will always believe that they were hanging out partly because of little baby Duffy hanging out with us.
Afterwards, we found out that dolphins will circle around whales giving birth as a protective measure and they tend to be very protective of pregnant dolphins. What an amazing and beautiful and magical animal!
And one of the most memorable moments of my pregnancy to date!
Baby Duffy has already started his/her travel adventures and being one with nature!
