After 3 days of being in Australia it was time for the first properly exiting activity – swimming with dolphins. This was a wild dolphin swim so no unethical happenings were occurring! Unfortunately, it was not a free swim as such – we had to hold onto a rope and wait for the dolphins to come to us. Still, being underwater with them in their natural habitat was awesome. Dolphins were my favourite animal for a while when I was younger and I have very much rekindled that love – I LOVE DOLPHINS.
Fail no. 1:
The excitement of being about to swim with dolphins put me in a classic ‘I’m a disaster’ situation as I was oblivious to the fact I did not know how to snorkel. At the age of 23, despite being a complete lover of swimming and water, this was my first time ever using a snorkel – and let’s just say, I was not a natural (who even knew it could be possible to be bad at snorkeling?). Thus when I hurried in the water as soon as they said GO I had the realisation ‘I don’t know how to breathe’. My goggles steamed up, I kept getting water in my snorkel, I could neither see nor breathe… exactly what the snorkel is supposed to prevent from happening. I also kept kicking my legs (not okay here) as I just want to swim when I’m in water… I wasn’t really getting the whole, ‘stay still, just breathe through your mouth, face your head forward, don’t face down’ way of things… I did eventually get the hang of it as we went along, but by the time I was really getting it and enjoying it, our time was over. Next time I don’t know how to do something, maybe I should wait for the first timers briefing… I was just too keen!
Fail no. 2:
We were in and out the water numerous times at different spots and although I did improve on the snorkeling side of things, I was yet to see a dolphin underwater, as oppose to the many we saw on the surface.
Eventually I spotted an underwater creature swimming below me… this is where I then believed I had seen a large fish, because how could a dolphin be that small? Well, turns out I had in fact seen a BABY dolphin (and to make it more ridiculous I had even managed to get a photo of it). I was so convinced I had not seen any… I think I was secretly not wanting to be disappointed in thinking I had seen a dolphin to then realise it was only a fish. There were at least two baby dolphins that swam past me too!
So – dream or disaster, fun or fail? It was a dream, a disaster, much fun, and a lot of fail. Yet I’m so glad I did it!!
