Joanna wanted her baby boy to meet the dolphins while he was still growing in her belly. So she and her partner Daniel and his mom left Holland to join me for a five day custom dolphin trip to Bimini.
Joanna’s vision was having the wild dolphins scan her belly, so she and her baby might receive any benefits and blessings the dolphins have to offer. We had several swims with the dolphins over the course of their trip, including her most memorable experience; a 3 hour swim with a pod of bottlenose dolphins. During our swim with the bottlenose dolphins, they repeatedly swam over and scanned her. I got some of it on camera. Joanna was so delighted to have her wish fulfilled!
Following is a short video of her encounter swimming with and being scanned by the dolphins!
This is the letter she sent four months later…
“30 minutes after we found out I was pregnant, we were searching the internet for places to swim with dolphins. Not the trained, captured ones, but wild dolphins who can decide for themselves if and how they want to connect with you. It didn’t take long before we found Joebaby’s website and got excited by the experiences other people had with both Joebaby and the dolphins.
After a few e-mails and Skype-conversations we flew to Bimini for our own dolphin-experience.
Joebaby made sure we all could enjoy the trip, by helping us improve the skills that needed improvement (breathing through a snorkel, using the fins, diving) before actually going to look for dolphins. He even customized his snorkel for me, so I could snorkel as well!
I must admit I was hesitant at first, because I don’t really like swimming in open water or with big ‘fish’, but we started by swimming at the beautiful reefs that surround the island, where the water is shallow and there is just too much to see to be scared or uncomfortable. After our first encounter with two spotted dolphins, I knew I would go into the water with them if we had the chance. The young dolphins swam next to our boat for about 30 minutes and obviously wanted us to get in the water and play with them. Because of big waves only my mother in law was brave enough to jump overboard, but just watching these beautiful creatures interact with us and inviting us, was enough for one day.
The day we did go into the water with the dolphins was just wonderful. In our daily blessing, we invited them to come find us and play with us (I even specifically asked them to come and meet our baby boy), and very soon, they did. It was a pod that was feeding, so they stayed in the same area for quite some time. They would ride the waves past our boat and then go down to feed. The circumstances were just perfect: the water was calm and clear, the sun was shining and we all felt that this was it! As soon as we jumped overboard (and got over the scare of nurse sharks on the bottom), we could see the dolphins just swimming around. It didn’t take long before they came up to us and checked us out. I instantly forgot about the open sea and the nurse sharks. All I could feel was joy and gratitude for these beautiful, intelligent creatures, connecting with us: connecting with our unborn son by scanning my belly. They were obviously very curious and kept coming back to us. The pod stayed with us for quite a long time and was later joined by another pod. I was back on the boat by then, but had a great view, watching about 30 dolphins playing, sneaking up on people snorkling (another boat had joined us by then), riding the big waves that were caused by a huge ship passing by, swimming alongside and underneath our little boat, looking me straight in the eyes.
Our time on the island, the blessings every morning, the time we spent with Joebaby, the appreciation for each other we shared every night, the beautiful creatures we encountered; the whole experience truly felt as a great gift.
If you want to experience a real dolphin swim, Joebaby is your man and Bimini is the place.
Love from Holland,
Joanna
