What do we see out there besides whale sharks?

What else have we seen this season?

Occasionally we see creatures other than sharks (we know they live out there too!).  This season we’ve been lucky enough to swim with dolphins twice.  We usually see them at least once a week but they aren’t always in shallow water and they sometimes swim away as soon as we enter the water.  The first time we actually saw the dolphins in the water a few of them turned, looked at us and they carried on with their swimming.

This past week we had a few guests on the boat with us when Manolo spotted some dolphins very close to the shore.  We got ready to swim with them and when we were just in front of the pod, we jumped in the water.  We were extremely lucky and groups of them just swam by us and played in the sea.  We had a group of three and another pair just swim in between us and create an awesome memory!  You could hear them clicking away and talking to one another, probably about the silly humans swimming in the ocean.  

While dolphins are Darren’s second favorite creature after whale sharks, we should say that we’ve been really lucky and we have seen a bunch of different critters in the bay.  We have encountered a silky shark, a baby hammerhead shark, a yellow bellied sea snake, multiple turtles, a few sea lions, a manta, mobula rays, humpback whales, a guitar fish, the usual porcupine fish and all of the fish that travel around with the sharks.  We’ve been very lucky interns and volunteers this season!!!

Guitar Fish!

Porcupine fish!

and Mobulas! 

I'd post photos of the hammerhead and silky shark but you'd just be looking at poor photography of a blue ocean.  Both were on incredibly rough days and the sharks were lost in the waves.

-Nicole