Lonely Planet™ · Thorn Tree Forum · 2020

Swim with dolphins!!????

Country forums / Pacific Islands & Papua New Guinea / Fiji

My partner and I are traveling to Fiji (Nadi) in a few weeks time. It has been a life long ambition of mine to swim with dolphins preferably in there natural habitat as opposed to a marine park. This ambition was reinforced when I lost my brother and he too shared the same dream. I have googled nearly every site possible to find out where in fiji i can go to swim with dolphins. If anyone has any idea please let me know asap...

In their 'natural habitat' Dolphins swim with packs of Sharks underneath-not all the time but enough to make it very dodgy to just jump in the water with a school of feeding cetacea.

If you're unable to find any formalised commercial activity that includes swimming with Dolphins it may be that it's against Fijian law to do so-as is the case in many countries including mine.

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We spend 3 months in Hawaii each year and had a pod of dolphins swim around us outside the reef in Waikiki last year. They came back 3 times and it was a great experience but I had forgotten the SD card in the Go Pro I carried so missed filming it.
We snorkel with sharks many times and they too are wonderful to see in the natural habitat.
Have only encountered dolphins a few times in Fiji traveling in the Mamanucas but never when we have gone on a "Dolphin experience"!!!!

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I note that it is legal to swim with Dolphins in Tonga I know someone who does tours there-or did.

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Look up Takalana Bay Retreat. There's a pretty-much-resident population of spinner dolphins at Moon Reef, and they can organise to get you there.

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PS Takalana is on Viti Levu... You can take a bus from Nadi.

No idea what your experience of "marine park" is, but in a Fijian context it's a protected part of the sea that would be much more "natural" than anywhere else.

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