Oh dear. Not sure if it was a leftover from a tummy complaint I’d had in England a week before, just the heat or something I ate, but I did not have a good night. Starting at around 4am I woke up with severe stomach cramps and spent most of the rest of the early morning taking frequent trips to the toilet… By breakfast time I’d dosed up on diareze and was starting to, er, stem the flow, but wasn’t up to much and only had a bit of bread & Jam (along with an extra dose of grapefruit seed extract, yum!).

The wind, if anything, was the strongest it had yet been and we weren’t sure we’d be going out in the boat for a while. However, we soon found out we were going and set off in a smaller boat (“Sea Star”) than on Friday. It was just the 9 of us along with Ruth and the boat staff this time, no French tourists or divers to contend with! Ruth was delighted that we’d secured the services of Halid as Zodiac driver as he was a star when it came to finding dolphins.

James also seemed to be suffering from a similar malady to me and we both had to suffer the indignity of nurse Sharon’s rehydrating drink sachet… ergh! We’d only just got out into the towering waves (ok, 10-12ft, but they felt big!) when Martin’s beloved baseball cap blew off and seemed destined for a watery grave. Fortunately for him, Halid leapt into the zodiac and managed to retrieve it before it sunk without trace.

We managed the trip to the reef without too much further incident (I had a brief sprint to the loo and ended up feeling sick as a dog for the last 10 minutes of the trip due to spending a few minutes below decks in the rolling waves!) and found that the whole bay was extremely choppy. However, there was a chance this could work in our favour because the rough water might keep the dolphins inside the protection of the bay.

We all suited up and set off in a bouncy zodiac for the first white buoy. We’d had strict instruction on a buddy system whereby no-one was to leave the water or set off anywhere without letting their buddy know (enforced due to Val’s vanishing act the time before!). Once we leapt in to the water, it was virtually impossible to see anything, let alone dolphin fins! Val struggled badly in the water at first. She was suffering a lot with sunburn anyway and the choppiness was making it hard work for her. Ruth and I ended up dragging her along by her hands to get her to the orange buoy. Once there, we linked up hands and floated in the water whilst waiting for a sight of the dolphins. It was so frustrating; we could hear them whistling underwater and we could even catch the odd glimpse of fins in the distance, but we couldn’t see them anywhere. We gave up after 45 minutes or so and went back to the main boat, where most of us just crashed out until lunchtime. Whilst watching out for dolphins with the binoculars, I spotted that two big groups of snorkellers from the other boats moored up had gone miles past the orange marker buoys and were virtually on the reef itself! After pointing this out to Halid, he quickly roused the staff on the other boats who shot out in their Zodiac craft, hauled the snorkellers out of the water and banned them from going back in for the rest of the day!

Having had a few paracetamol, I was feeling a bit better by lunchtime and managed to get a bit of food inside… (guess what? Chicken again!). The choppiness of the water in the bay was making it virtually impossible to spot any dolphin activity and we were all feeling a bit down. I lay down for a bit of a snooze and was just getting nice and drowsy when the inimitable Reeds (well, Frankie, Martin & Phil anyway!) decided it was time to set off out again… I was so close to refusing to go as I was starting to feel achy and cold by this point, but decided that if I didn’t go, they’d come back having been surrounded by dolphins! Maja also came back with us.

Ruth accompanied the five of us in the zodiac, but didn’t suit up as she didn’t intend going into the water. Halid dropped us off by the first white buoy and we started to swim in towards the orange buoy again. Just then out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a movement near the reef behind me & Martin… Fins! And lots of them! They were only about 20 feet away and moving slowly back in towards the main bay, so I swam as quickly as I could on an intercept angle and managed to get within 10 or 15 feet of them underwater. They were fantastic, but so much smaller than I expected – perhaps only about 4ft long or thereabouts. I noticed a young dolphin (very pale – almost white) in amongst the others who seemed keen to keep it protected as they moved off faster than I could swim… Martin wasn’t far behind me and we both surfaced with daft grins on our face! Before we could really think much about it, Ruth and Halid appeared (WAY inside the white marker buoy, but apparently this is allowed for a pick up!) shouting frantically at us to get in the zodiac as there was another pod moving out of the bay we may be able to catch up with.

We piled into the zodiac (exhausting) and Halid sent us crashing through the waves in pursuit of the fast-disappearing pod. Although we did almost catch up with them, when Halid told us to bail out, we were behind the dolphins and only saw disappearing tails… Once more we clambered into the zodiac and tried to chase them further out with no joy. Turning around once more and heading back for the bay, we suddenly heard Halid shout excitedly, pointing ahead of us into the bay.

Whether it was because we were now the only boat on the water as the other snorkellers had been dragged out, or just fool luck, we’ll never know, but we were heading towards an awesome sight as a huge pod of dolphins was heading right out of the restricted area into the main bay itself and we were on an intercept course with them! They were leaping well clear of the water, bodies gleaming in the sun with spray and foam crashing everywhere – it was an intoxicating sight and, before we knew it, we were among the pod with Halid & Ruth yelling at us to get out quick! Needing no second invitations, we all baled out of the zodiac and eagerly looked around.

The first thing I saw was a somewhat miffed-looking dolphin looking ruefully back at Martin who had almost landed on him! There were dolphins everywhere and, as soon as we picked up which direction they were heading in, we set off alongside them. I was aware of several single dolphins swimming around only 10ft or so away from me and then, looking further to my right, I suddenly saw what appeared to be a wall of dolphins, all moving slowly through the water, spiralling around each other with the most fantastic smiles on their faces! It’s true what they say, you do start swallowing water as you can’t smile back with a snorkel in your mouth! Remembering my ‘clicking’ watch (it has a compass dial on it that clicks when turned) I turned the wheel around and, much to my amazement, a dolphin broke away from the main pack and swam alongside me for a few seconds only a few feet away… it was an amazing experience to have even that brief moment of interaction with one of these graceful creatures. I felt that I was the one being checked out, rather than the other way around. I was only really aware of Martin at this point – away to my left slightly as we followed the dolphins back in towards the main bay, although I later discovered that Maja had been right behind me and had seen the dolphin coming close. She thought I was looking at my watch when I was clicking the wheel around!

The dolphins gradually faded away into the bay where we couldn’t follow them and as we turned around, we noticed that the Zodiac had gone back to get Sharon & James from the boat, but unfortunately they didn’t get there in time and the dolphins were gone. We tried one more drop-off but although we heard the dolphins again, we had to give up as the 2pm deadline was close.

I slept most of the way back as the adrenaline of the dolphin encounter wore off and, by the time we arrived back in Nakari, I was feeling pretty lousy again and was only fit to crash into bed for the afternoon. By that evening I was beginning to feel a bit human again and, although I wasn’t up to eating & drinking much, I at least managed to eat some of the food (chicken again – yum!) and managed a weak Gin & Sprite later on! Halid was the grateful recipient of several large cups of Gin by way of thanks for his efforts in tracking the dolphins down.

Over dinner we discussed what “trip” to try the next day, with the “Sunset tour” being favourite, combined with a camel ride. Sharon, keen to do some shopping in the local town and not wanting to let the sunset tour get in the way (or the reality of standard astronomy, it would seem) asked if we could do the “Sunset Tour” on the Monday morning, leading us to question just why she thought it was called the “Sunset Tour”… To add to the evening’s entertainment, Martin performed a backflip off the low wall surrounding the café shade… not voluntarily, may I add… He picked a great spot for his landing too… nothing but sand for several feet in all directions apart from the collection of sharp shells, coral and rock that he decided to land on with his back – ouch!

Read on: Day five - Lost in the desert!
Go Back: Day three - Dugong bay and a transfer to Nakari

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