Dolphin Chasing
You can pay a small fortune to get in a pen and swim with dolphins in Mexico, even ride them a bit. We’ve done it; it’s cool, but it’s NOTHING like swimming with them in the wild in the warm Indian Ocean.
When we overheard a fellow guest at the resort talking about hiring the a boat for the day with guaranteed dolphin sighting, we figured it would be worth it to just to spend the day on a boat snorkeling. If we saw dolphins in the distance, bonus!
Within half hour we had found a cluster of boats watching dolphins and caught our first glimpses. What we weren’t prepared for was our captain yelling, “go, go, go!” Apparently, the snorkels and fins were not just for snorkeling but chasing after the pod we saw.
It was comical watching the four kids and two dads dive in, chase dolphins, get outrun, race back to the boat, and speed off to try to catch up with them again. Those dolphins are fast! We repeated this several times, and they were all loving it.
Eventually, they were tired enough to break for snorkeling. This too was amazing, as the water was the clearest I’d ever seen (photos don’t do it justice).
When snorkeled out, we did one more run at dolphin chasing. This time, content we’d taken enough photos, us moms dove in too.
I can say, I completely underestimated how amazing it would be to swim behind a pod of dolphins, including a baby. They were close enough to touch (which we didn’t do, of course) and so beautiful gliding through the water and chattering away. We finished the adventure with a stop for fresh cut watermelon and coconut on the white sand beach. HEAVEN!
If you go to Tanzania or Kenya for safari, definitely add a stop in Zanzibar (for many reasons), and hire a boat for dolphin chasing. Make sure all are strong swimmers, as you’ll have lifejackets on board, but they’ll just slow you down. Trust me, it’ll be the best five hundred dollar day (for party of 8) ever.
