(upbeat music)
(people shriek)
- We became friends with a family of wild dolphins.
- [Nat] And this is their story.
- Hey, I'm Mark.
- I'm Nat.
- And this is Zyzz.
- We're a group of friends who surf subwing
and, really, we try to get out there
and appreciate these beautiful-by-nature islands
as much as we possible can.
Turks and Caicos pretty much has consistent flat water
the entire year 'round.
- So, we don't tend to get any surf-able waves here
so, luckily, we've got these amazing boats
that kick up huge waves
for our guests, for ourselves, and-
- [Nat] And that's kind of become our favorite spot.
- I think about three, four years ago,
we were out filming.
We'd actually brought me dog along as well.
We were kicking up the waves.
Zyzz was out and about in the water.
This wild dolphin just came right up to us,
started playing around the boat.
Turns out this dolphin's name is Jojo.
He's been swimming around the islands of Providenciales
for the last 40 or so years.
Everybody has an incredible story interacting with him,
locals, tourists, the lot.
He's definitely a bit of an adrenaline junkie.
One of his favorite activities to do is to surf.
Just as we love surfing, he loves catching that wave.
Sadly, he doesn't get the opportunity to ocean surf,
so we kind of had a bit of a mutual agreement
where we kick up a wave and he'll come and join us
and we both share the wave together.
- He'll come up in front of the boat
and he'll actually lift his tail out of the water
and give a nice big old slap
just before the boat reaches him
almost to say like, "Yeah, let's go."
- He gets pumped up as soon as anyone on the boat
starts cheering, screaming, shouting.
When we get excited when he's around,
he definitely starts surfacing more,
jumps a little bit higher.
He really kind of thrives on that excitement
that he hears from other people.
(people shriek)
- [Off Camera] Oh my God!
Get that?
- So, Jojo has actually been known occasionally
to protect humans from sharks,
so he's kind of-
Sharks aren't dangerous, but occasionally I guess
maybe if there's an object in the water,
maybe he might think that a human is a little uncertain
around the shark
and he's definitely been known to put himself
in between the human and the shark
and try and scare the shark off.
So, Zyzz is a true water dog.
He really kind of suited the lifestyle here
and just loves getting in the water
whenever he gets the chance.
Jojo's specifically been known to make lifelong friends
with a lot of different dogs through the years
and we have a feeling that when the dog's out in the water,
the dolphin tends to kind of seek him out.
The first few times that they met,
they kind of really kicked it off
and whenever Zyzz is out on the boat now
and the dolphins are around,
he's straight in.
The dolphins get super excited.
They'll just start swimming around
and he'll just follow them and tail them around.
They'll turn, he'll turn,
and they just like to follow each other
in a little dolphin train, almost.
It's amazing to watch.
Jojo's got a little baby, Dreamer,
who is super friendly just like Jojo
and he's slowly starting to teach her to surf as well.
He's teaching her that humans can be friends.
She's really picked up off him
and she really gets stoked as well.
- You can pick up bits of coral.
She'll come and grab it, swim around with it.
It'll go over part of her fin almost like she's carrying it.
And it just becomes this incredible game
that you're playing with a little dolphin.
It's amazing.
- Bo is Dreamer's mum, Jojo's- I guess- dolphin wife.
She is always alongside Dreamer.
You'll never see Dreamer by herself.
You'll always see Bo looking after Dreamer.
Jojo occasionally cruises around by himself
but Bo is always looking after Dreamer.
We've built up a relationship now with Dreamer
where Bo trusts us
and what she'll do is she'll leave baby Dreamer with us
and she'll go off fishing and go and do her little thing
and then she'll come back, pick Dreamer up,
and she'll take her away.
- Bo is more reserved.
Jojo is definitely a thrill-seeker.
Maybe they have different parenting ideas. We don't know.
So, they tried to implement a dolphinarium
down here several years ago.
It was actually on Grand Turk
where all the cruise industry comes in.
So, all the big cruise ships go to that island.
They were proposing to put a dolphinarium
up in one of the creeks on the island.
It got massive backlash. Nobody wanted it to happen.
Part of the whole campaign that came from that
was we had these stickers which said,
"Jojo says no to captivity,"
and you'd be hard-pressed to go around this island
and not see that on the back of someone's car here.
We love dolphins being in the wild.
They swim up to 60 miles a day on average.
What's a dolphin gonna do in a little pool?
It's not right and, thankfully,
people down here had the right visions and they stopped it.
- Jojo's definitely an ambassador
to really stop this whole captivity thing.
Every interaction that we have with him
is totally on his terms
and that's how every interaction with a dolphin should be.
They've actually named him a national treasure
and it's now illegal to harm him in any sort of way.
He proves that dolphins wanna play with humans,
that they can be friendly,
that they can give these amazing memories to everybody
without having to be forced to do so
and it's amazing to watch.
(upbeat music)