Through the years I’ve often been asked how you can attract the attention of the dolphin. To most people seeing her up close is enough. Dusty has little trust in people standing waist-deep in the water. Would you trust someone who doesn’t trust you?
Though dolphins have excellent eyesight they do rely mostly on their hearing as their sonar enables them to navigate in murky waters and at night. Therefor the best way to attract Dusty is by making sounds. But I’d like to very point out that you are NOT attracting her this way, you are merely letting her know you are there. It’s entirely up to her to decide if she comes over. Therefor it is not necessary to endlessly keep on doing this. That even turns her attention off and you’re just making a fool of yourself.
When I go in I usually slam my monofin on the water a few times. That is a specific sound she identifies with me. Often she’s already there before I have put my monofin on and this makes me feel very welcome.
I love swimming and if she’s not there I just enjoy the swim and the diving down between the weeds and all the other sea life. Instead of being disappointed because she doesn’t join me. Dusty is very sensitive to emotions and ‘greed to meet’ is definitely turning her off.
If you’d like her attention you’d have to do something that interests her. There are many ways to produce sounds under water. One that travels a rather long way is by rolling a large stone across the slipway cement. Under water, because sound travels five times faster in water than in air. Throwing in stones does not work, for only by continuously rolling the stone you let her know that there is actually someone there, which may spark her curiosity.
Once in the water I find sounds that somehow rattle the most effective to attract her (mostly short-time) attention. Items to produce this are easy to come by. Many plastic bottles have a cap that is ribbed at the side for to give grip. When you draw a thumb nail across it this makes a rattling sound. By varying speed and pressure I create a simple rhythm sessions for Dusty. Something somewhat similar goes for the rubbing of the thread of two screws against each other. I keep these objects in a little medicine box, that I carry on my weight-belt. This has a ‘child lock’, you have to press the lid to twist it open. If you just turn it, you hear a rattling sound.
My waterwing is also an instrument to produce sound. I dive down to the bottom at a buoy or the anchor chain of a boat and swim up letting the wing rattle along the chain. Also I can let the nobs on the leading edge rattle across a chain, the rib of a boat or let my fingers run along them. With a stone I can tap rhythms in varying tones along the wing.
Stone Drum (Click on the photo titles for the videos)
My snorkel is also an instrument to express sound, some integrated into my breathing, tongue shots, rollers and all kinds of spontaneous weird sounds. Even the rubber strap of my mask produces a whole range of sound when I rub it with a finger.
A nice, far reaching, gong-ish sound comes from the iron ladder at the side of the pier, when I tap the underwater bars with a stone.
Some times Dusty initiates a game by bringing me something. I saw a man at the beach teasing her with his flipper. She took it and later brought it to me.
Also a fork, which she disentangled for me from the weed on the slipway.
A holographic streamer, which I had stuck on my monofin so intrigued her that she tried to take it by trying to wrap it around her snout.
A whole different game is playing with air. Through a dialysis hose I blew strings of tiny bubbles for Dusty upon which she did the same, from her blowhole of course.
A relatively new game is for me to take an ‘empty’ bottle under water and then let the air bubble out.
'Now that's very kind of you, Jan, but there's plenty of that up there...'
When I dive deep, till 15 meter, she often comes over. To let her know I am down deep I blast a few bubbles through my snorkel. Not too much, though, as I need to keep some for the travel back up.
Unlike Dusty I am mainly oriented to the visual. As you may know, ‘Dolphin Address’ is not a postal reference, but coined for addressing the dolphin and being addressed by her, because I’m interested to find ways to communicate with Dusty by body language. And she does respond, often in ways I only grasp afterwards, by watching the video as wide-eyed as I can.
Kate, for instance, told me recently, that when she wrote something with her finger in the sand on the bottom, Dusty also touched the ground with her flipper. And I haven’t seen the footage yet, but the cameraman of ‘Mona Lisa’, Pascal, told me Dusty often swims halfway behind next to me in sync with my monofin.
Circling often gets Dusty’s attention. To get her on camera I often dove to the bottom and swam a circle around Pascal. Also sometimes I dive deep and ascend in a spiral, maneuvering this with my waterwing. To save the energy to counter my buoyancy I hold myself to the bottom by hanging on to a rock or a sturdy seaweed. Dusty often then comes to check out what I’m doing there. Lace weed is a good anchor if you can get hold of thick enough a bundle. I sometimes twist it around for enhancing its sturdiness, which Dusty finds very interesting.
For many years now we’ve been playing ‘hide and weed’, at which I hide behind weed until she swims triumphantly by. She always finds me.
There are lots of maneuvers that invite her scrutiny. Like when I swim sideways, pushing and pulling the waterwing in length from and towards me, or when I turn belly-up under water and so swim on. But also at the surface, doing silly butt-hops, side-throws and spinners is ample cause for her to investigate.
To cover a distance and to warm up a bit I accelerate into a speed swim. She just loves to join me then and glides along on my left halfway behind me, which I videoed from the tip of my waterwing, how she was possibly monitoring my dysfunctional kidney and/or my eternal lower back pain.
On speed I like to make a ‘perfect descent’, followed by a likewise ascent, throwing in all the elegance I can muster.
You and I may think I study her, but I’m certain she studies me too. And she responds, in ways that often escape me and my video camera. Like when she has so tired me out that I turn belly up at the surface, stretch my hands and wing behind my head and float on my breath hold, exchanging air in split seconds, while she cruises around and below.
How haplucky I am with a girlfriend who more than matches my savvy when it comes to matters of the wet kind. Would love to introduce her to my mother (96).