Scuba4families were lucky enough to go snorkelling with a pod of Spinner Dolphins at Marsa Alam's 'Samadai' national marine park. Also know as '#DolphinHouse' its the home of hundreds of spinner dolphins and one of the only places in the world where you can interact with them in their natural habitat. It's a moment to treasure for a lifetime.
Carefully managed as a conservation marine park, snorkelers are obliged to wear lifejackets so that they cannot duck dive and chase dolphins. There are also dedicated zones which are separated by red buoys indicating where the snorkeler can and cannot swim. Snorkelers are not permitted to go inside the dolphin zone where they are protected and can rest without disturbance.
We organised our snorkelling trip with #MonkeyDivers who we also dived with the entire week we were there. If you want a personal service touch with small client numbers and friendly staff look no further. The guide who took us into the water was calm and understood the dolphins behaviours very well.
In the morning the spinner dolphins are resting/sleeping and are circling the lagoon. Spinner Dolphins sleep with only half their brain 'switched off' so the other half can be awake in case of looming predators. We saw a pod of 30 dolphins, but its not unusual to see super pods of 100 or more spinner dolphins.
In the afternoon we were very fortunate in having an interactive experience with the dolphins, where we were circled by individuals and pairs of dolphins.
Its not guaranteed to see dolphins at this dive site, but you have a good chance. We did dive there aswell two days earlier and saw none. Dolphins are more likely to approach snorkelers than divers due to the noise of the bubbles.
Check out our video of the whole experience below
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