Dolphins – the word alone brings a bright shimmer in the eyes of children and a nostalgic smile on the lips of adults. For decades now, our daily life has been accompanied by the image of this intelligent and so friendly, playful hero of TV-serials, named Flipper. Through him, we think we know all about dolphins and all dolphins must be like he was.

It was the same with this famous dog “Lassie”, so famous that suddenly a race of dogs changed name from Collie to Lassie, which simply means little girl in Scottish. I had a Collie, a big beautiful male named Prince and whenever crossing children on the street, the call of “Lassie, Lassie” followed us.

The children growing up with these images often are so programmed that they carry on this image into their adult life and then behave in the same way; for example when having the opportunity to swim with dolphins in the ocean, if by chance or by organized boat-trips.

There is a deep desire to touch; to cling to the dorsal fin and ride the waves … living a little bit of magic and be the hero!

The dolphin called Flipper was, as all the film-animals, a captive, trained animal and had a role to play, rewarded with fish. He died in the arms of his trainer, having shut his blowhole and thus stopped respiration, willing to die. He was not sick, he was just tired, tired of the captive life.

When swimming with dolphins and whales, we are strangers in their element and should behave exactly as we would like strangers to behave in our homes: friendly and with respect and not trampling around and spreading havoc.

Dolphins as other marine mammals have very sensitive perceptions; with their sonar they scan you and detect your feelings towards them. The simple thought of “I want to touch” makes a dolphin swim away. Or he stays out of sight, almost laughing at you. Quite often I have experiences this when swimming with a group of people that the dolphin swam behind a person for some time without being seen but observing the man or woman very carefully. So how is it that some people meet dolphins easily and others can’t catch an eyeful of them?

Well, as I said before, dolphins can read your feelings. They not only know you by the way you come to meet them, for example over-arm swimming is felt as threatening by them, but they sense your heart and through this organ you can communicate with them. The old Egyptians knew it and the heart was the organ to be finally weighed to judge the person. The brain was scraped out of the scull as useless … that should make us think – with the heart!

And it is amazing what communications can take place between man and dolphin. One day I had a woman in my group who could not swim but her greatest wish was to meet the dolphins in the ocean and it took a lot of courage from her to come on the boat and even more to get into the water. Even though she had a life-jacket and an experienced swimming instructor at her side, she felt very insecure and could not enjoy the experiment. I swam some yards behind her when a dolphin came up close to me, looking at me as if asking what the poor woman was doing there. So I told him in my heart that she could not swim and was very afraid in the water but that she wanted so much to see a dolphin swimming in the sea, at least once.

He understood and slowly, as not to frighten her, swam up to her, looking at her and turning around her at just arm-length and then saying good bye and disappearing in the blue depth. For her it was the ultimate realization of her desire, this alone had been worth the whole voyage.

We know so little of this hidden underwater world and yet destroy it without even thinking about. It’s still time to change …. Who knows for how long?