Red Sea dolphins

In 1999 some of us were able to swim with a pair of dolphins in the Red Sea at Nuweiba, Aqaba.  A few years before a local fisherman had befriended a dolphin and established a special relationship with her. The dolphin stayed in the Nuweiba area and the fisherman allows people to swim with her. He charges a modest fee for the privilege and insists on some reasonable conditions - no touching, and no more than 10 people in the water at once. Any problems and he whistles the dolphin away. What made this really impressive is that the fisherman is a deaf mute.

Our surprise was that the dolphin had recently given birth so we were able to swim with a hyperactive and curious baby dolphin. Seconds after entering the shallow water we were confronted with a dolphin that just wanted to play. It zoomed about, making itself known to all of us in a most appealing way, while the mother just slowly circled around. When we dived down junior would quickly appear, circle us and come right up to tap on somebody's mask asking to play. Then it would zoom off, spiral around mother for a while and swim back to us.

Here is a 3.5 minute video clip of what we saw. The video was filmed by Malcolm Rahn.

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