Thursday, July 8, 2010

Dolphin Dance

By far, one of the best parts of our honeymoon trip was learning so much about Hawaiian culture, including the intense love its residents have for the ocean environment and the life forms that comprise it.

Never having snorkeled before, I must say I was a bit (as in, very) nervous as we headed out for our first sea excursion of the cruise. But in the end, other than feeling a little cold afterward, I had a blast checking out colorful fish and rare coral at two of the top snorkeling spots in the world – Molokini Crater off of Maui, and along the famed Kona coast on the “Big Island,” Hawaii.


As if that weren’t already enough fun, we were also amazed to discover a total of three separate pods of dolphins, plus a pod of pygmy sperm whales, which our guides hadn’t seen in local waters for over a year. Being so close to these animals made me feel I was looking at something in a magazine, with dolphins jumping in the sea under a sky painted with the occasional rainbow.



And a fun fact we’d never heard before? Dolphins’ sonar allows them to detect when someone is pregnant, and their instinct to protect other mammals then leads them to surround the boat or raft she’s riding in! Our guides definitely had a couple interesting stories about women who didn’t already know they were pregnant receiving a clue from the way the dolphins acted. Pretty cool, huh?


Have you had any fun encounters with wildlife, whether on your honeymoon or another trip?

(Photo & Video Credits: Personal Library & Google Images)

12 comments:

  1. Living in Florida I love to play with dolphins! They love to swim alongside jet skis and jump with you as you go down the intercoastal! So glad you got to experience hanging out with them, they're so cute!

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  2. Wow, that's so cool about the dolphin sonar!

    You know I love to snorkel when I'm on vacation. It's so relaxing. I could stay down there forever, and am so sad when the excursion is over. We didn't see any dolphins in Belize, but some swam near our boat when we were in Mexico and it was pretty amazing.

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  5. We did this exact same cruise and the dolphins were by far my favorite part! Beautiful! Glad you got to experience it!

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  6. Being from a caribbean island, I saw dolphins all the time (although I never swam with them, too chicken). I love looking at them however and maybe one day i'll actually get the courage to swim with them.

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  7. Gorgeous pictures! What an experience :)

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  8. Whoa, I didn't know that about dolphins. They are fascinating!

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  9. So jealous you saw dolphins! I saw the tip of a fin for a second on our boat trip up the Na Pali coast, but it never resurfaced. So lucky you saw them!

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  10. Lucky lady! I didn't know about dolphin sonar - so cool and caring of the dolphins!

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  11. Sooo cool! We will be close to maui we will have to try snorkelin g there.

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  12. So cool to see dolphins!

    We saw lots of fish in the maldives and lots of other stuff in Sri Lanka when we went to an elephant orphanage.

    I did see Tigers in thailand too at a temple where they look after them and got to touch them!

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