Coming up, Jonathan tries to steal a bandana from wild dolphins!
Welcome to Jonathan Bird’s Blue World!
It’s a windy day aboard the Dolphin Dream dive boat, and we’re heading towards prime
dolphin territory!
The Blue World and Brave Wilderness teams have been diving in the Bahamas for a few
days now.
We had some epic shark diving with Lemon sharks, Patches the Hammerhead and Tiger sharks.
We even went shark diving at night!
But today it’s time to try something completely different.
We’re looking for dolphins.
Finch is scanning the horizon for dorsal fins.
Now it’s a little known fact that in order to get dolphins, you actually have to summon
them to the boat.
And to do that you have to perform the summoning dance—sort of a ritualized dolphin-bringing
thing.
And we don’t really know how to do it, so Finch is going to give Cameraman Tim and Cameraman
Bill a lesson.
And it actually works!
Soon a small pod of Spotted dolphins have converged upon the bow of our boat.
They love to ride the pressure wave in the bow wake, like underwater surfers.
Dolphins on the starboard side, dive dive dive dive dive!
Dolphins are too fast for scuba gear, so we just use a mask, fins and snorkel.
The dolphins are curious, but they lose interest quickly.
So, to keep them engaged, we have to swim as fast as we can and splash around to pique
their interest.
Even when I am swimming as hard as I can, the dolphins are barely swimming.
But pretty soon we get tired, so Houston brings out an electric scooter.
The dolphins love the scooter, so they swarm around Houston as he spins and twirls underwater
like a blue-jeaned ballerina.
One really fun way to engage the dolphins is to offer them a bandana to play with.
They love to pass it back and forth, but their favorite thing to do with it is to play keep
away with the pathetic humans.
Even though they don’t have hands, they can carry the bandana on their pectoral fins,
dorsal fin and even their flukes.
Mark tries to get close enough to grab it but this dolphin says “no way!”
Finally he drops it and now is my chance.
Psyche!!!
He is taunting me.
Come and get it slowpoke human!!
The dolphins steal a lot of bandanas.
I wonder if they have a stash of them someplace under the reef or something?
So one of the things about the bandana game is…sometimes the dolphins don’t give the
bandana back, so you go through a lot of bandanas.
So, the best thing to do is to actually cut your bandanas in half, because a half a bandana
works just fine, and you get twice as many chances, just in case the dolphins steal it—which
they like to do.
SO now we have a whole bunch of thee babies.
And these are the perfect size for the dolphins to catch on their pectoral fin or .
Good stuff.
Even though these are Spotted dolphins, many of them seem to have no spots.
That’s because they are born spotless.
As they get older, they will start to get a few spots around age two.
But fully mature Spotted dolphins are completely covered in spots.
This mature female is swimming with her 2 year old calf, and pregnant with her next
calf.
Even though the two-year-old wants to come over to investigate me, mom keeps herself
between us for a while until she is sure I’m not a threat.
Later they swim by again and the calf gets a close look at me and my big camera.
Even though the juveniles are more curious, sometimes even the adults like to play.
Here’s something you don’t see very often.
Dolphins blowing bubbles.
Who knows why they are doing this.
Maybe it’s just fun.
After we start getting really tired, the dolphins get bored and go off to play among themselves.
Hey Bill!
What did you think of that man?
That was awesome!
Love diving with dolphins!
It’s like the most fun you can have, when you’re almost drowning!
Yeah!
Ha!
What did you think Timmy?
It’s Unbelievable!
Hey here’s our ride!
Let’s go back and do it again!
Yeah, let’s go back and do it again!
So the trick with dolphins is keeping them interested.
When they get bored they swim away, and we have to get back on the boat and sort of chase
them down again and then jump back in the water.
So it’s a process of jumping in, getting out, jumping in, getting out, because they
get bored because we’re slow.
We’re boring.
So we have to keep them engaged so they get back on the bow.
Dive dive dive!
Alright let’s go!
Dive dive dive!
So the trick with dolphins is keeping them interested…transcribe…Alright let’s
go!
We catch up with the pod, and jump back in.
Finch is on the scooter this time trying to keep them engaged.
And they still have my bandana!
Is Mark petting the dolphin?
Not many of the dolphins like to be touched, but some of them actively seek being petted.
Pretty soon the parents all come back to collect the kids at the playground and after a few
playful passes, they head off into the blue.
Please note that they did not give my bandana back!
That was unbelievable!
Most amazing experience of my entire life!
Swimming with those dolphins was unbelievable, absolutely unbelievable.
I locked eyes with dolphins, swim with them, dove down and then kind of spun around and
maintained eye contact the entire time, yeah, life changing, unbelievable, can’t believe
it!
Can we go back please?
I can’t think of many wild animals that will actively engage with people, never mind
play a game of keep away.
Dolphins are definitely one of the smartest and most curious animals in the Blue World.
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