What a morning! I had a friend visiting me here on Maui and I really wanted to impress him so we got up early and drove to the very end of the road, to a place called La Perouse Bay. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you can find a pod of Hawaiian spinner dolphins casually swimming back and forth out in the bay during the morning hours. Today we were very lucky!
We stood on the lava rock shoreline for a few minutes, peering out into the calm waters of the bay before I spotted small dorsal fins breaking the surface. "There they are!", I said. We both grabbed our underwater cameras and donned our snorkel gear and quickly swam out to get a closer look.
We spent the next hour or so swimming and photographing the dolphins. There were times when I felt like I was part of the pod. It was a magical experience and one I want to share with you. Check out some of my favorite photos from the experience below.
I always want to photograph the wildlife coming right at the camera. It was difficult with the dolphins because they move so fast! This was my favorite shot from the morning.
Most of the dolphins were in resting mode. They can't fall asleep like us, they would drown. So instead they just shut down half their brain and go into an autopilot. However, some of the dolphins were wide awake and playful. You can see in this picture and several below that dolphin is playing 'capture the leaf'.
This dolphin obviously wanted his portrait taken.
Most of the time the pod of dolphins would be casually swimming about 30 - 40ft down, over the sandy bottom. The early morning light made for some ethereal shots as we would free dive down to the pod.
Occasionally a dolphin would break away from the group and come check us out.
"Part of the pod"
Here you can see one of the dolphins playing the keep away game. They would carry this leaf around on the dorsal or pectoral fin, then drop it, and another would scoop it up.
This was my last shot of the morning. I can't wait to go back and swim with the dolphins again.
Looking to have this experience for yourself? Check out the location here on pinmapple.com:
[//]:# (!pinmapple 20.594596 lat -156.419284 long Swimming with Dolphins d3scr)
All my best,
Dai Mar