Ah. May. Zing.

I swam with a pod of wild dolphins yesterday afternoon.  It looked like this:

(photo from Goldfish Kiss)

My friend, May, and I hitched a ride with the wonderful people from Trilogy to the island of Lanai (about 9 miles off the coast of western Maui).  We cruised across the ocean channel in about 2 hours, anchored in Manele Bay and walked over the hill to the amazingly bright and pristine Hulopoe Beach.  

While standing on the beach, I looked over the calm bay and noticed about 100 yards out into the water a group of dark shapes cutting through the water.

I poked May in the shoulder.  "Dude, I think those are dolphins."

May looked out to where I was pointing.  "No," she said.  "Those are snorkelers."

I looked back to the swimming shapes and saw dark fins and backs arch over the water.  "No, May," I said.  "Those are definitely dolphins."

A pod of about thirty to fifty Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins was slowly cruising the shallows of the bay.  Later, May told me that they were in their relaxed or resting "alpha state" where they "shut down" half of their brains so they can "sleep."  Since half of their brains are still active, the dolphin can still come up for air at regular intervals.  During this alpha state, dolphins are generally very relaxed since they are not actively hunting for food.

We dropped our bags on the sand, grabbed fins and masks and ran for the water.  Later, I can note how impressed I was by how quickly we were able to go from a flat out run on the beach to leaping into the water while snapping on goggles and slipping on fins.  We should do a triathlon or something.  We have this running to swimming transition down!

I usually don't swim with fins, but I was so grateful to have a borrowed pair to help me reach the dolphins faster.

The second I put my head under the water I could hear them whistling and clicking to each other.  They sounded so close and all around.  As I ferociously swam out towards them, I kept popping my head out of the water to gauge where they were to make sure I continued to swim in the right direction.

I swam out about 100 yards and still didn't see any dolphins under the water but with my head above water, I could see that they were just a few yards away from me.  I ducked my head back under and saw that a spinner dolphin was zooming towards me.  

The dolphin came straight for me at a speed that did not feel that different from watching a torpedo jettison through the water in a bad submarine movie.  Knowing that there was no way I was going to out swim a dolphin, I suddenly felt very foolish and felt that maybe it had been a terrible mistake to swim out this far.  And then suddenly at just a few feet away, the dolphin slowed, turned slightly, and slowly cruised past to eyeball me with what looked like a grin on its face--and then he was off again.

And then I was watching a group of ten to twenty dolphins swim under and around me.  Although they were traveling in a group, many of them looked as if they were paired up.  Each pair would come up at different intervals to take a breath and continue swimming.  They didn't seem to be headed in any direction.  They were just swimming.  Sometimes they stayed at the surface, and sometimes they dove a little deeper, and sometimes a few would leap out of the water and show off a few of their signature spins before slapping the surface and falling beneath it.

I held my breath and dove deep to swim alongside them.  They were close enough to touch.  I swam about five to ten feet down and did a lazy half turn to swim on my back and watched dolphins swim above me.

May and I swam with the dolphins for about thirty minutes before they started to group together and move out of the bay altogether.

After they were gone, May and I high-fived each other.  We could not believe our good luck.  

May turned to me.  "Weren't you just saying on the boat over here how you wanted to swim with dolphins?" she asked.  "Well, you got your wish today."

We treaded water a bit, waiting to see if the dolphins would come back, but they had vacated the bay.

May and I swam back to shore, and when we got out the Trilogy crew told us how lucky we were.  Although the spinner dolphins are usually found cruising in Hulopoe Bay, the Trilogy crew says that they usually just see them there about once a week.  They also said that on all the Lanai trips they do, it is very rare that the dolphins are close enough to shore to make it an accessible swim out to them.

Swimming with the dolphins today was such a mind blowing, spine tingling experience.  I have always loved swimming out in the ocean, and I feel kind of like a dolphin myself.  I love the feel of the water around me as I move through it, so it felt even more special to share this experience of moving through the ocean with incredibly beautiful and powerful animals.

My dolphin encounter was definitely the highlight of my day, but the rest of the Lanai trip was phenomenal.  It was a gorgeous day, and I pretty much spent all of our allotted beach team in the water.  The snorkeling was incredible.  

When I got tired, I cruised up to the beach and soaked up the sun.

A little too much sun.  I got a little sunburned today, and I'm going to be feeling the sting tomorrow.  Ouch.

But the burn was worth every single second of my amazing day with May on Lanai.

On our trip back to Maui, we were about to raise the sails when we came across a pod of about 300 spinner dolphins as they were zipping through the open ocean at incredible speeds.  What a perfect bookend to our Lanai trip.  We began the trip swimming with the dolphins, and we ended the trip watching them fly on by.