BCAA Travel Blog

We are sitting in a room, getting a dolphin anatomy lesson from a bronze-skinned Antonio Banderas lookalike in electric-blue swimming trunks. He points to a picture of the animal’s blowhole. “Don’t stick anything in the dolphin’s blowhole,” he says. “And don’t touch their eyes. They are very sensitive.” He then points to the creature’s underside. “This is where their genitals are located. We want you to be friendly with our dolphins, but not too friendly. Don’t touch their genitals.” Then he smiles and adds, “But maybe you call them up later and make a date.”

The location is Dolphin Discovery on Isla Mujeres, near Cancun, Mexico. We have come to the island to swim with bottlenose dolphins, although considering the size of the lifejackets we have been given, swimming could prove to be a tough chore. After the lecture concludes and we start to troop down to the dock, I ask one of the young employees if any famous people have come to the facility. “Bruce Willis,” she says. “Oh yeah, and some Saudi prince. But he didn’t want anyone else around when he was having his dolphin encounter, so he rented the entire place for an hour. It was just him, the dolphins and his six bodyguards.”

There no celebrities visible today, and thankfully no swarthy bodyguards. Our group consists of my wife, my teenage daughter and I, and two young Brits, who appear pretty excited about their upcoming dolphin encounter. I’m not nearly so keen, especially since Antonio Banderas warned us that when we were out in the water and we couldn’t see the dolphins that we should hold our arms and legs tight to our bodies until the trainer gave us the all-clear. I was left with the unsettling impression that the dolphins might want to take a chunk out of us. They have about a hundred teeth, arranged in two sharply pointed rows. My daughter, however, is fired up to meet and greet the smiling cetaceans, so I’m taking the plunge.

There are dozens of these dolphin encounter sites scattered around the world today. The company that owns this place in Isla Jujeres has three other operations in Mexico–at Puerto Aventuras, Cozumel and Nuevo Vallarta. Outside of Mexico, it has three more locations: Hawaii, Tortola and Anguilla. There are three types of environments where people can swim with dolphins: ponds, natural demarcated areas and in the wild. The facility at Isla Mujeres has both ponds and large sea pens to house its 20 or so captive dolphins.
 
Adding to the popularity of the activity are the claims of some researchers who insist that swimming with dolphins boosts the human immune system and help psychological well-being by inducing states of expanded consciousness such as those found during meditation or transcendental states of being. However, these claims, it should be pointed out, are not backed by any reliable scientific evidence.

Although swimming with dolphins has become a runaway hit with tourists, it remains controversial. Animal rights activists argue that it is inhumane to capture and confine these highly intelligent and gregarious creatures, which sell for more than $100,000 but are usually “rented,” sometimes with an option to buy. They contend that dolphinariums, no matter how idyllic looking, support a cruel and poorly regulated international trade in the captive mammals. All told, they estimate that there are some 3,000 captive dolphins worldwide, with some 400 in the United States alone.

However, water-park operators maintain that their dolphins are happy in the natural-looking facilities, well fed and receive regular medical checkups. They also insist that their star attractions have a much easier life than they would have in the wild. I’m not sure what the dolphins feel about the situation, but the entire concept verges on the surreal.

Dolphin Discovery offers several interactive options for visitors, depending on how much you want to spend and how ambitious you want to get. We have signed up for the “Dolphin Royal Swim,” an experience which the company’s brochure says can be summarized in two words: “Action and Speed!” Not only will we get to cavort with a pair of bottlenose dolphins, we will also have our actions captured on video and in still photos. It’s the deluxe package.

To reach the staging area we have to walk a couple of hundred metres down a sizzling hot wooden dock. At the end of it we clamber out on a plank above the water, while clinging to a mesh fence. Following the trainers’ instructions we jump into the salt water and proceed through a series of interactive exercises. We watch as the dolphins swim in concentric circles around us, we kiss the dolphins, hold a pole in the air and have the dolphins leap over it, listen to them sing, and grab on to their dorsal fins as they tow us through the water. It’s a thrill touching them and hearing them vocalize. They are sleek, powerful creatures with bodies that appear to be pure muscle and skin with the texture of smooth rubber. The skin, which a dolphin sheds every two hours, is extremely delicate and easily injured by rough surfaces, much like our own.

For our big finale with these aquatic acrobats, we are told to pose in the water, arms stretched forward and legs extended back in “the Superman position.” As we wait, the two dolphins come surging up from beneath us. They get under our feet and accelerate forward, lifting us upward. It’s like riding a pair of living water skis. The dolphins head straight for the dock, then suddenly veer off in different directions, propelling us through the air. When my daughter, who has a tiny frame, took her ride, the dolphins sent her flying like she had been shot out of a cannon.

That image was captured perfectly in the home video that we bought in the Dolphin Discovery gift shop at the end of our visit. The video, set to the soothing accompaniment of James Taylor’s tune “Mexico,” was artfully and professionally done, as were the colour photographs of us interacting with the dolphins that we also purchased in the shop. The entire experience set us back a couple of hundred dollars. But the memory of that incredible day, I must admit, was priceless. 

Filed under: Destinations