Woodburn Photo and Yoga Warrior October 2008 Swimming with Dolphins Excursion to Ponto Mamoli was a resounding success even though the trip had the worst weather in 4 years. The wind and periodic rain on Saturday attempted to make the sea un-sailable and the yoga deck un-mattable but the warriors persevered and all classes were carried out. The boat launched every day for swimming with dolphins and delivered dolphin encounters, although the sea had its way with quite few dolphin swimmers assisting with weight loss and feeding of fish.

Swimming with Dolphins on this trip involved some travelling on the Saturday all the way to Ponto Malongane and Ponto Do Ouro bays, Mozambique, where the swimmers could enter the water to interact with the wild bottlenose dolphins. On Sunday, although under grey skies, we had awesome encounters just off the Ponto Mamoli bay. Kerry who was pregnant managed to swim right above a whole pod of dolphins in a large circle with all of them enjoying her interaction. What an unbelievable dolphin encounter for her and her unborn baby. Genevieve and Andrew managed to get some awesome dolphin encounter underwater photographs even though the light wasnt at its best, while lawrence amoungst others joined the dolphins as part of their pod.

The enthusiastic dolphin swimmers were not to be dulled by sea sickness and snorkeled up a storm both off Bass City point and the spectacular coral reef of Techa Banene. Alexia practiced her free diving and June worked the mono fin. This time of year is my favorite dolphin encounter trip as we get the chance to see the mighty humpback whale, either resting on the surface, tail sailing, migrating with their young or breaching. These massive whales breach high out the water and can often be seen way off shore. Our dolphin swimmers were lucky enough to see whales on all the days and I managed to get intot the water twice with them. Once a young juveline humpback whale curiously circled the boat in quite shallow water before moving off into the bay and the other a mother and calf diving deep under the boat checking me out. Due to my slightly out of practise freediving skills I wasnt really close enough to take great photos and with poor sunlight the whales detail was difficult to highlight. All of the humpback whales had large remora fish attached and were heading south at varying speeds.

Once again the trip allowed normal city folk to interact with wild dolphins and have spectacular dolphin encounters as well as enjoy top class yoga delivered by both Clara Woodburn and Paige Chapman from Philadelphia USA. The cocktails on the sunset dune were an evening highlight for guests to get to know each other and the complete group enjoyed spectacular dolphin encounters and yoga weekend.