Curacao Dolphin Dive

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SteveInMD

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Has anyone one done the Ocean Encounters Dolphin Dive? If so would you recommend it? It's very expensive, but my daughter really wants to do it. Since we'll be there over Christmas I could surprise her with it as her present. However, I'm not sure it will be worth it. Thoughts?
 
Last edited:
IDK...

This was our dive experience:

We met the trainer on the dock. He told us the do's/don'ts - mostly don't pat the top of their head and we rode out to a mooring a few mins. off the dock on sort of an average reef. The Dolphins streaked past once or twice while we were all swimming to the site - the mooring is nearby but not on it. So fast that I was worried I wouldn't be able to pan fast enough to film them. I got my buddy's attention once to look up but by the time I did he was looking at blue water where the dolphin had been.

Then they disappeared for under 10 minutes. Maybe made one pass over that entire time - by the time you see them they're past you and gone. So we amused ourselves on the reef but it was pretty barren - I found some cornetfish in one area. I thought I saw them farther down near the surface so I popped up to take a look and saw the trainer jumping them while some nearby tourists (coincidence) watched. When I asked him about it later he explained that he was calming them down - apparently they go streaking down the wall and think they own it - he thought they probably got their asses kicked by a pod of wild dolphins that were frequenting the area that morning.

A few minutes he and they showed up and made some medium speed passes between/around the divers. Then he settled them down for pictures, petting etc. One was fascinated by her reflection in my camera port so I got some good close-ups as she admired herself. That probably lasted 20 minutes or more then they called the dive at 45minutes. I've got a great shot of my buddy with a dolphin peering over his shoulder - he used it for years as his screen background at work.

It's not a particularly deep dive, the video on their website is a pretty accurate depiction of what happened to us also - lots of hugs, blowing bubbles, etc. We were able to make the dolphins do some basic tricks - you can see one of them in the video where the woman suddenly points to the surface and the dolphin zooms up - the trainer is the guy in the blue seen a few minutes earlier holding the target.

They seemed to like anything you did that was unexpected except don't try to grab them fast. They also seem to like certain people more than others - especially females. And our dolphins were a mom and her older son. Bright shiny things also. I kind of liked that they didn't seem overly trained compared to what you see in marine parks etc. I've also done the Dolphin Dive at AKR on Roatan and this was the better of the two. Figure out who the OE videographer is on the boat and watch where he's looking - he spots them before anyone else. He and I shot some video of one playing with some weed that no one else on the boat even saw.

I would do it again.
 
Steve,

I've done it about 5 times. It's usually my wife's birthday present to our son and myself. I love it and look forward to it every year. Yeah, it's not inexpensive, but snuggling with a dolphin in open water is pretty darn amazing!
 

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