“DOLPHIN WATCHING IN MAURITIUS”

It’s been three years now that I am swimming with these amazing creatures once a week.

What a chance to have this opportunity to live such special moments with wild mammals. I feel very grateful for this. Every time I’m snorkelling with them it seems to be the first time. Feelings are still the same. Superb, Great, Wonderful, Peaceful, Relaxing, … .

The reason why I am writing this blog today is for actually a totally other reason of what I am talking about here above.

This idea of writing a text about this adventure: “Swimming with dolphins in Mauritius” comes to me after two years being in the business of boat excursion in Mauritius as a full time job.

Why? Simply because I noticed that for our entire dolphin watching bookings, 75% of the clients are systematically asking these questions:

• “Are we going to disturb the dolphins”?
• “Are they aggressed by the boat”?
• “Are they in danger”?

So after two years bringing people watching the mammals, I found interesting to share with you my personal perception of what is happening here on the West Coast of Mauritius.

The business of dolphin watching in Mauritius started in the year 2000. There were not more than 5 boats (35 – 40 people) bringing guests watching the cheerful creatures in their natural habitat. It’s in 2004, through the social networks, comments on the web of people that experienced this excursion that this activity took another dimension.

Today we are in 2016 and our estimate is that every day (1^st January to 31^st December if the weather conditions are good) there are approximately 25 boats and 150 to 175 people on the sea to watch them. It is a big increase in terms of boats and people.

When you look closer at the situation: 25 boats, 175 people, group of dolphins in the same area every day and NO ACCIDENT since 2000 (16 years !!!!). Never Ever! NO dolphin and NO people injured, NO boat accident, Nothing! And the beautiful species are still on our coast every day (1 mile away from the reefs or in the bays). My opinion is that:

• The skippers know how to do the job properly
• The skippers respect the dolphins
• The people respect the mammals
• The dolphins definitely feel the good and positive vibe (energy) that comes from the humans
• If they were in danger, stressed, or what so ever, clever as they are, they would have found other places to go to relax, sleep or eat!! NO DOUBT.

Two years that I am swimming with them once a week every week and I still find them very calm, communicating with each other, playing with each other, playing with seaweed, authorising people to swim VERY close to them, … Such intelligent creatures would have left our West Coast since long now if something was wrong!

Honestly, I really think that the dolphins are NOT in danger and NOT stressed by the boats and the people around them! Something sure is that I do not remember seeing such amount of dolphins cruising on the West Coast of Mauritius when I was 10 or 15 years old! Today I am 28 years  and some days the groups are SO big that there are maybe 100 dolphins swimming together! What a wonderful show!

What I can recommend to people and skippers is:

• Keep doing the good job
• Keep respecting as much as they can the dolphins
• Get SLOWLY in the sea to swim with them
• Do NOT try to touch them
• Do NOT try to go deep with them (for the respect of dolphins and for your own safety)
• Swim calmly and not hitting the sea harder with the flippers
• Continue to shout with joy when you see them under the water

My question is now:

Finally, don’t dolphins like it having people swimming around them?