When I was snorkeling along Hawaii's Kona coast, I didn't know spinner dolphins were in the area until I looked down in the water. I stayed still. If a swimmer is quiet they will surface in the area. I was so enthralled that I videoed whole minutes of blue nothingness, no idea my camera was still running in my hand. On land, we hear the call of a bird or a wild animal as a distinct sensory channel absorbed only by our ears. Suspended in the buoyant, all-encompassing environment of salt water, I was startled to feel the vibrations of the clicks and whistles of the dolphins in my skin – a collection of sounds that seemed to bypass my normal hearing, and land in some hidden recess of my inner ears that I’d never known existed. It was a riveting experience, especially when stray bubbles from their breath shimmered around me as well. Dolphins and whales don’t just hear each other. They actually, palpably feel the gist of what another dolphin is communicating. Their connection is something we humans can’t begin to comprehend.
At one point a pod of five dolphins rose slowly from the deep water off to my right on a trajectory that put me directly in their path. Their flippers scarcely stirred, as if they were letting the air in their lungs lift them upward with as little effort as possible. I hovered there, afraid to do anything that might startle them, and stared in wonder as the closest dolphin swam past me just a few feet away, his clear, round eye locked on mine, and that permanently upturned corner of his mouth looking so much like a smile. The dolphins broke the surface in a graceful arc for a breath of air, then glided back downward until their gray backs vanished into Hawaii’s brilliant ocean blue. What dolphins think of us in our ridiculous snorkels and ungainly, milling flippers I can’t imagine, but I was left with the distinct impression that the tables had been gently turned: the dolphins passing by me the way tourists take in an interesting exhibit at a museum or a zoo.