A Close Encounter with Wild Dolphins in
Australia
by: Gustasp Irani
My first glimpse of Tangalooma’s famous wild dolphins was from
the boat that ferried us to Moreton Island 75 minutes from Brisbane,
Australia. They arched their black silken bodies out of the water as
though to greet us as we docked at the island’s main pier. I was
down at the pier later that night for an up close and personal meeting
with these friendly sea mammals; a group of eight that frolicked in
the floodlit waters as they waited for the party to start.
Along with the other guests of the Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort,
the only one on the island, I trooped down to the beach, picked up a
fish in each hand from a bucket and stepped into the water. Immediately
a dolphin swam up to me. Large, gentle eyes looked into mine; pleading
to be fed. I bent over and held the fish in the water and the dolphin
gratefully accepted my offering in its smiling mouth. And then lingered
on a while, I like to believe to say thank you, before swimming out
and repeating the ritual with the next guest who stepped up to feed
it.
The wild dolphins that visited this little outcrop every day of the
year to bum a snack and say hello to us, their distant cousins that
lived on the land, was only a fraction of the thrills that Tangalooma
had to offer its guests. Over two days in this island paradise, I would
snorkel with schools of colourful fish, scuba diving within shipwrecks,
ride All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) across sandy banks and even go tobogganing
down desert dunes.
Indeed, still recall the moment I lay flat on my stomach on a plank
at the summit of a sand dune and looked down the treacherous plunge
ahead of me. The moment of panic, however, had passed. I had already
committed to the tobogganing run and focused my attention on doing it
right. I grasped the front of the plank and lifted it off the sand and
made sure that my elbows and feet were well up in the air so that they
did not get scraped as I raced down the dune.
‘Let it rip?’ Alcester, our Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort
tour manager and guide queried. ‘Let it rip!’ I responded.
The next moment I was tearing down the face of the dune. I don’t
know what speeds I reached, but it seemed like over 100 kmp and with
the ground whizzing under me, no more than a foot from my face, it was
both terrifying and exhilarating. When eventually I came to a complete
stop at the bottom of the dune I stayed still on the plank, savouring
the thrill of the ride. A little later I was trudging up the dune for
one more zany run down its slope. It was the culminating highlight of
the island safari which started with a drive through dense native forests
that emerged onto a bleak desert in the middle of the outcrop.
Back at the resort I checked in at the resort’s dive unit and
kitted up – tanks, wetsuit, the works – for an underwater
adventure. A little boat ferried us to the dive site at the far end
of the island where the rusted superstructure of sunken vessels spooked
the sky above the water. Soon I was swimming with fellow divers around
battered hulls of ships resting upon the seabed and admiring the new
marine ecosystem of colourful coral and tropical fish that had evolved
around these ghostly galleons. I felt my pulse start to quicken when
Lea, our dive leader and my diving buddy, led us into heart of one of
these wrecks. Sensing my apprehension, she held my hand while we swam
through an underwater passageway. I emerged from the ordeal with the
sense of elation that comes from having confronted my worst fears and
survived.
The rest of the dive was a visual delight. Soft coral swayed to the
rhythm of the currents while brilliantly hued fish in amazing shapes
and sizes waltzed around us in this bizarre underwater wonderland where
life flourished in the midst of ancient wrecks.
That evening I slowed down the pace of the adventure and lazed around
in the shallow of one of the many swimming pools that dot the property.
I lay in the water and congratulated myself for following up on the
lead I found on Traveljini.com. I was browsing through the site looking
for something in India – Traveljini.com is the leading travel
portal in the country – when I noticed that it was offering a
close encounter with wild dolphins package in Australia. Before I knew
it I was hooked; curiosity turned to desire and desire to compulsion.
I had to get to Tangalooma. Now that I was here, it was all Traveljini.com
promised it would be and more.
Later that evening I was down by the floodlit pier to interact with
the Tangalooma bottlenose dolphins once more. The ranger attached to
the Dolphin Research Centre assured us that the feeding ceremony accounted
for only around 20% of the dolphins’ diet and that they had to
depend on their own hunting instincts to catch fish in the open seas.
According to her the contact between dolphin and humans on this island
goes back a long way to the time when the two cooperated to catch fish.
The dolphins would herd schools of fish towards the shore where the
aborigine would catch them in their nets. Once the catch was hauled
in, the local fishermen would throw back a part of it into the water
for the dolphins to feed on.
The next morning I shifted back into high gear when I mounted an all
terrain vehicles (ATV), a modified four-wheel motorcycle with a souped
up engine, and went speeding down a deserted beach before heading for
a dusty rollercoaster ride over sand dunes that waved over the island.
It was a fitting finale to an adventure that lifted me to zany heights
and gifted me with peaceful and quiet moments; an adventure during which
I had the good fortune to be part, if only briefly, of the legendary
bonding between humans and dolphins.
About The Author - Gustasp Irani - 25 years of experties
in Travel writing..currently working for traveljini.com
- seo@traveljini.com
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