Diving With The Dolphins Of Sataya (Dolphin Reef), Red Sea - A Video

[ricki]

Feel very lucky to have fallen into this video footage. Clear water, good light, shallow water, white sand reflective bottom ... oh, and a few dozen willing spinner dolphins on the move. Usually, a boat would drop the divers on the pod and they would just swim off into the distance out of visibility in short order. For whatever reason, curiosity they let me tag along for a while, likely related to the dive scooter on was on. Martin Stepanek suggested swimming on your back fast beneath the surface might bring them in. He said to try to impress or otherwise stimulate their curiosity. Martin said to avoid trying to impress them with normal free diving skills, breathholding as they will see what lame pollywogs we really are and dash off. So, I would motor along inverted and generally they allowed me to keep up or actually waited for me several times. They even circled back a couple of times. Accommodating cetaceans! They even had several young, calves with them but the moms and dads were ok with me swimming with and through the school. I understand they forage in the pelagic reaches around Sha'ab Sataya, then rest and play over the sands encompassed by the reef. More about the Long-Nosed Spinner Dolphin (Stenella longirostris), below.* Fun stuff, checkout the video and you can see what I mean ...

6854619



https://vimeo.com/6854619

http://www.fksa.org/albums/album448/Sataya.sized.jpg
Dolphin Reef or Sha'ab Sataya about eight miles off the SE coast of Egypt



p.s. - Special thanks to Peter Satitpunwaycha for the excellent sharp still photo that is the opening shot for the video.


* http://www.cms.int/reports/small_cetaceans/data/S_longirostris/s_longirostris.htm
http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=29

[conchxpress]

Rick, amazing photo of you with the dolphins. Looks like the space above your mantle just got a new occupant. Was the photo "natural" or was there some computer work done on it? Almost looks surreal.

[ricki]

Thanks Frank, Peter captured that. I Photoshop almost everything, (even breakfast if it fits). That is why writeups take so long. Still, Peter shot it in in the raw so what you see is pretty much what came out of the RAW editor. I just played with the color and contrast a bit put put in the credit. The figures were as shown. I almost never print any shots, good suggestion though.

If you watch the video, you can see when we shoot each other with the dolphins in between!

[conchxpress]

Your commentary on the video was great. Didn't recognize your voice. Ever think about doing voice-overs? If the engineering thing ever gets slow, you might think about a second career.

[ricki]

Thanks, actually been thinking about it as a part time thing, a new hobby. My wife suggested it as well. Getting over a cold too, the uneven audio masked it, ha! Figure I would start narrating some of this stuff for practice. Heard putting a blanket over your head can help the sound quality? Didn't say if that was with or without a mic though. Too funny.