By: Mandy-Rae Cruickshank - August 2007
Today I had an expedience unlike anything else I have ever experienced. While in Bahamas filming for a movie on dolphins and whales, my husband Kirk and I had an interaction with a dolphin that made us literally sit back and cry. Cry for what we experienced and for what most people on earth have not and probably will never get to experience. That was another species on this earth not thinking of us as a threat but taking the time to consider what we are and how we can exist together. The group we were filming with had been driving around in a boat all day trying to find some dolphins that would take part in an interaction with us for a movie that they were filming. The topic being dolphin slater? and the state of the world's dolphins and whales. We were about to give up and head in for the day when we saw about 7 dolphins. Kirk got in the water with a camera and saw several bottle nose dolphins fending off a couple of spotted dolphins. The spotted ones weren't being aggressive but were not wanted by the bottle nose all the same. Kirk and I didn't want to get out of the water even though the dolphins had no interest in us and were swimming away. So we decided to throw a couple of lines behind the boat that we could hang off of them while being towed by the boat.
With in a few minutes the two spotted dolphins from the previous encounter had turned around to play at the bow of the boat. When they tired of that and dropped to the bow wake they found us hanging there. I remember seeing one dolphin to my right and then I looked down and only about a foot in front of me there were two of them. Kirk was hanging on his line beside me and for the next 20min or so we sailed along behind the boat with these two dolphins right next to us.
There is no way to possible explain what happened next. I mean I can and will explain but you will never be able to fully feel the impact of what happened. Not unless you have had it happen to you. Never!
While being pulled through the water, by the line attached to the boat, and having the dolphins checking us out and keeping up- eye-to-eye without any effort on their part. I started to hold one of my hands out in front of me. I wasn't trying to touch them as I have a thing against touching anything in the water that doesn't touch me first. But that is when the strangest thing happened. The one female dolphin looked at me and my hand touched her. I was expecting that that would be the end of the encounter. That they would be scared off but no. She leaned in for more. Every time I moved my hand away she would lean into me to be touched again.
Kirk and I let go of the boat lines and dove down in the water to the white sand, and the two dolphins followed. The one that had touched me kept very close. She was looking me right in the eye and when I held my hand out she would come into it again. She wanted me to rub her. So I did. We swam circles together in the water above the white sand. Hand in hand. She told us what she wanted and we followed. Nothing more.
She would go over to Kirk and smile at the camera that he was holding. Then she rolled over and asked him to rub her belly over and over again. You could tell that she was the one in control.
Near the end of our time together the other dolphin showed up playing with a piece of plastic. When it tired of it the one that had been close to us picked it up and stated playing with it. I later learned that Kirk was thinking the same thing I was at that moment, shame. Shame that this amazing creature was showing us what we (humans) had left behind in its environment. Our garbage. I was worried that they would try to eat it or may chock on it so I swam after it to try to get the plastic away. The dolphin would play with it on it's nose then pass it on to it's peck fin and the to the fluke like it was a game. I grabbed a bit of it when it got back to its mouth. We played tug-of-war with it and I got about half of it away. I saw the dolphin swimming away with the remainder on its tail so I swam down and picked it off. I don't know if it knew how embarrassed we were that that happened. I hope it did.
Later that night Kirk and I sat out on the deck of the sail boat that we were staying on and both found tears running down our faces. Until then I didn't know exactly how profound of an encounter we had had. It was one thing to have a creature see us in its environment and accept us and engage us but it was another thing to have this creature show us how we have effected its environment. How the garbage we carelessly toss out ends up as a play toy for them. How our waste products have made these incredible creatures toxic waste. How we slaughter them for food that poisons us and harms their existence. And yet they can still see us as friends.
If only more people could have an experience like this. We would think before we act and question things we do and why we do them. We would learn to care and that is what will make the difference. |
