How to Swim with Dolphins in Bermuda

Get up close and personal with these amazing mammals as they dive, flip and do tricks at Dolphin Quest in Bermuda. Learn how they communicate and even exchange kisses and high fives.

Katrina: As you know, my name is Katrina, I’m gonna introduce you to some of our dolphins. Before we do that though, we just need to go through what we call dolphin etiquette. I also like to be familiarized with you guys a little bit with what we’re all about. One thing that I want you to keep in mind is that the dolphins, they’re there because they want to be. So we need to reward them from hanging out with us, the way that you do that is by clapping and cheering. Just by clapping, and cheering and being enthusiastic with the dolphins, also, they really enjoy touch. The only thing know when it’s coming, they’re expecting it. And this is the way that you touch a dolphin, nice smooth open handed touch, obviously avoiding areas like the eyes and the blow hole and the mouth as well, those three areas. The eco location is great to help them navigate, the whistle means good and that’s all that it means as well as our enthusiasm. Also we communicate with our hands so we ask the dolphins to do things, I’m gonna get you guys to help me out to a few of our hand signals, but just be aware that they look to our hands for communication. If you have your hands out, they actually think that you’re trying to say something. Female: Katrina, this is unusual habitat for dolphins, where are we? Katrina: Where actually in the maritime museum in Dog Gellar, so lot’s of maritime history here. Female2: how fast are the dolphins able to swim? Katrina: That’s a good question; they can actually reach speeds of up to 20 miles an hour, which is actually the local speed limit. Female3: What do they typically eat in a day? And how do they eat? Katrina: That’s a good question too. We actually feed the dolphins base on their needs individually. So, if they’re nursing a calf, they might need more food, if they’re a young baby and their drinking milk, they may not necessarily need as much food as the adults. So we do vary their diet, we come in at 7 o’clock every morning to prepare for them especially, individually and they all eat kind of a mixture of cape land, herring, mackerel and squid. I’ve been here for about 9 years time now and for useful time, so I have a great relationship with all the animals. And it is our job to make it fun even when we’re training things husbandry and implementing preventative health care system for the animals. Actually if the dolphins are having fun, then we’re having fun as well, that’s very important. Female4: Well, I think, we had fun, didn’t we? All female: Yeah. Female4: I’d say we had a great time, and it’s definitely something that we would love to do again, so thank you so much for guiding us into their world. Female 3& Female4: Thank you. Katrina: You’re welcome guys. It was nice to meet you.