The Dolphin Trip

Tuesday morning we woke to the sun coming up (Justin, just right before it actually came up and was outside taking photos of the morning.)  Someone pointed out that due to our location in the world, we are some of the first people who greet the new day, since back at home you guys are half a day behind us. 

The sun was out and the winds were calm so after breakfast we were able to head out for the Dolphin Trip.  This excursion allowed a maximum of 6 people plus our guide (Romanu again).  We embarked on yet another 45 minute ride from the resort, but this time in the opposite direction.  Hibiscus Highway we had heard, is mostly a treacherous path of bumps except for the patch between town, the airport and our resort.  Eventually the pavement ended and we were met with the original “highway” – a one lane bumpy dirt path.  Romanu is an expert at driving this and managed it quite well despite scraping the undercarriage multiple times. 

We took the road all the way to Natewa Bay, the largest bay in all of the islands.  Our launching spot was a small patch of black sand beach with a few rusty and dying old boats from the dark ages.  The only boat that looked remotely usable was a small metal skiff with a motor.  Yup! That’s our boat! Our guide arrived, “Dolphin Joe” as the island calls him.  We shuffled out to the boat and piled in.  Justin and I sitting in the front set of seats.  We had about a half an hour ride out to the spot the dolphins like best.  We were easily sunburt and waterlogged by the time we got there.  Sadly, we saw no dolphins.  The wind had picked up and I guess that usually means the dolphins go elsewhere.  We drove around a bit looking for them but in the end headed towards the reef to do some snorkeling.

This reef was pretty colorful! Justin had his GoPro on so we are hoping we captured some good footage to show everyone at home.  We spent about 40 minutes snorkeling, I got cold early and returned back to the boat.  The bay was pretty choppy still so I did a lot of bumping up and down in our little skiff.  I was glad I had returned to the boat because Justin had found himself a small black tipped reef shark AND an unexpected hammer head off in the distance.  We headed back towards shore… yet another wet and bumpy 40 minute ride.  We stopped for lunch at a near by resort called La Dolce Vida, owned of course, by an Italian.  We had delicious thin crust brick oven pizza, a welcome change to the daily food we get at our resort.