“Being witnessed face-to-face by a wild dolphin underwater is like being SEEN, soul-to-soul.”  

The Experience

In July 2025, Wildquest Retreat Center welcomed us to Bimini Island, Bahamas. Our pod was made up of grandmothers and grandkids, couples, friends and a few delightful solo travellers… guests ages 9 to 72, all present in the spirit of exploration, relaxation and learning the wild ways of dolphin communication.

For five days aboard the gorgeous 40’ Catamaran sailboat “DolphinQuest,” we cruised the warm turquoise waters among bottlenose and Atlantic Spotted dolphins.  When conditions were right, we slipped into the water in masks, snorkel and flippers, coming face-to-face with dolphin pods swimming and playing, wild and free. Their physical joy is palpable, and many of us felt such a rush of excitement in this first meeting that happy tears flowed in with a rush.  

Dolphins are direct, intense, playful and curious. They want to know us, be near us, to investigate and initiate play. While snorkeling and free-diving among them, we stirred up a game of “seaweed tag,” by dropping short strands of sargasso, which a young dolphin would then zoom in to scoop up with a tail or pectoral fin, darting ahead of the group to drop the seaweed for the next pick-up “tag.”  It’s hard to laugh underwater, but my snorkel was definitely bubbling over with pure, giggling delight!

The Connection

Dolphins notice our love, excitement, fear and playfulness…and respond to our actions underwater with a full range of their own emotions.  They express themselves verbally, making sophisticated streams of whistles and clicks that communicate excitement and high-frequency enthusiasm for sharing space with new beings visiting their ocean world.

When excited, wild dolphins can move so fast, they look to be swimming in fast-forward! They love to spiral around our bodies as we move through the water, lining up to make perfect, sustained eye contact. This close contact with wild dolphins feels electric with excitement. They swim up so quickly, and suddenly you are looking directly into an alert, intelligent brown eye who is most definitely looking at YOU, searching deeply into your eyes with 100% alert focus. 

The depth of their intense presence seems to stop time while they are near…it is a totally transporting experience!

The Healing Frequency

When dolphins come near, slow down then pause up close, they scan our bodies with their sonar and electromagnetic senses, reading our individual biofield with advanced acoustic assessment and processing capabilities. It is well-documented that dolphins can sense or “read” physical differences in humans like neurodiverse sensory functioning and pregnancy; they also detect the presence of tumors, cancer, and other ailments. They respond to these physical conditions with intense curiosity and increased focus of sound-scanning, which is associated with healing by frequency. 

Like human modalities of sound healing, dolphins use bursts and pulses of intense sound waves to shift the cellular function of tissues, activating increased functionality by transmitting the vibration of sound through the liquid medium of cell interiors, speeding up molecular and mitochondrial movement and activating “self-healing” functions of the cell.  

Western medical science is now decoding and working with similar sound tools to break up kidney stones, treat blockages and create other non-invasive sound treatments for human healing, but dolphins are already doing it underwater.  There are cases documented around the world that report measurable changes in human health, including increased organ function, rapid tumor reduction, enhanced brain function and increased communication capability after underwater contact with dolphins.

The Lasting Effects

As a wildlife teacher and guide, my greatest joy is watching my guests grow in joy and self-confidence with every day they spend in the water with the dolphins. Their courage to jump into the wild ocean is rewarded with a sense of personal power and increased agency as they dive into the water each day to experience new adventures in curiosity and community with our dolphin kin. 

As some of our smartest mammalian distant cousins, dolphins function so much like us, caring for their family groups with relationships grounded in constant communication, protection and play.  And, like humans, dolphins cannot thrive alone. They want contact and connection just like we do. On this adventure we learned that no matter where we live our “human lives,” with the dolphins we experience the wild sensation of bone-deep belonging. 

On Earth, as in Ocean, all is connected, every living thing intertwined. This feels like the most important lesson I can share from the wild; that we simply cannot live without each other.  

~Amber Herzog Lyman