There were at least a hundred dolphins, maybe more. They were swimming alongside the pump boat, under it, and away from it. A nearby group was leaping in dazzling precision like human water ballet dancers. A mother was cavorting with her baby just beside the boat. A few meters away, a spinner dolphin broke away from its group, sprung high into the air and spun like a top before somersaulting back to the sea. All the while 15 humans in the boat were clapping, laughing and shouting “more! more!” at the top of their voices.

That was ten years ago, when I saw them for the first time. Last Easter Monday, I saw them again. It was my fourth dolphin-watching exhibition but the thrill and excitement was still there.

Five-year old Cheyanna has seen dolphins before. She has watched them swimming desultorily in huge water tanks like somnambulists. She had seen them performing in swimming pools while crowds clapped politely. I wanted her to seem them in their element—out in the open sea. It is only in the ocean where one can appreciate the speed and grace with which they move. That is why they are so difficult to capture on camera. They swim so fast they can move from one side of the boat to the other in a flash.

The best time to watch dolphins is early in the morning when the sea is as smooth and still as glistening glass. We woke up at 4.30 a.m. to pick up my niece Nanette, her husband Robert, and their children Nica and Gio. By 6.30 a.m. we were in Bais City.

Mayor Tata Villanueva had arranged the trip for us. The city carefully regulates dolphin-watching expeditions. For smaller pump boats, passengers are limited to no more than 15 persons. It is piloted by a professional. Everyone has to register with the Coast Guard. All wear life vests which are not taken off during the boat trip. A tour guide comes along to brief the passengers on dolphin-watching etiquette—don’t feed the dolphins; don’t touch them, they are wild; don’t throw garbage especially plastic into the sea.

We were told that there are six species of dolphins in the Tanon Strait, the body of water between Negros Oriental and Cebu. There used to be large whales and huge species of marine life but they disappeared when a Japanese firm started testing the strait for oil.

Cheyanna counted at least three different species during our dolphin encounter—the bottle-nosed, the spotted or speckled, and the spinner dolphins. They are known to be friendly and gregarious. Curious and playful, they follow boats while the spinners leap, spin and dive to the delight of humans.

We saw pigmy sperm whales from a distance. The tour guide explained that unlike dolphins, they are shy. I remembered a friend’s joke that girls wearing bikinis should stand on the prow of the boat to make sure the pigmy sperm whales appear. No one in our party wore a bikini except the little girl, Cheyanna. The pigmies did not bother to come near.

A resthouse in the middle of the ocean?

Finally we headed for the sandbar which is smack in the middle of the ocean.  The colors of the sea ranged from dark sapphire blue of the deep sea to the brilliant aquamarine of the shallower waters of the sandbar. There were four resthouses. It was a remarkable feeling to be sitting in a resthouse in the open sea. During an earlier visit, I was sitting on the balcony when I saw a huge boat pass by so closely I thought I could touch it. It was like a surreal dream.

Four hundred hectares of mangroves

The last part of our trip was a visit to the mangrove swamps. Everyone knows how important mangroves are to maintaining marine and human life. The reason why there are so many dolphins in the strait is because it teems with fish which are bred in the vast mangrove swamp. We went through a walkway in the middle of the swamp. We could see schools of small fish swimming in the shallow water. And the forest of mangrove trees! Some of them were really huge and were twisted into unusual shapes by tide and wind.

Of spinning dolphins and shy pigmy sperm whales

A friend who has been to Bais says that the experience of seeing the dolphins in the wild was so profound he kept on seeing them in his mind for days. I know now what he means.

Thanks to Mayor Tata Villanueva, Anton, Stella and Sharon for facilitating this incredible journey!