Publicado: 16.09.2023
Dear sea friends,
I fulfilled my dream and went on a dolphin search on the sea from the city of Lagos. I looked for a dolphin-friendly boat, which is also operated by marine biologists and which also includes a tour of the Benagil Cave.
The tour started at 9:30 a.m. and lasted a total of 2.5 hours. We took the speedboat called Hurricane for about 15 minutes until we actually saw the first dolphins from afar stealing the catch from a fishing boat's net.
The background information we got about the animals from the marine biologist was particularly cool and I was able to ask a lot of additional questions, all of which she was able to answer for me.
The highlight of this highlight was that we also saw a bottlenose dolphin baby about 2 weeks old in this dolphin family of the bottlenose dolphin species.
In order to protect this baby and also the mother, another female animal can be seen here in the water, which is supposed to protect the two from the boat.
The larger the dolphin species, the smaller the family in which they travel. The female bottlenose dolphins also have a very interesting strategy to protect their babies from the other male bottlenose dolphins. They simply sleep with all male bottlenose dolphins so that they all believe that the baby is theirs and protect it.
After we had examined the animals enough, we went at high speed along the coast towards Benagil Cave. I was already familiar with this from the day before and I was really looking forward to seeing it from the inside. The view of the country was also really great.
From here on the far right side I tried to swim into the cave. And I was also amazed that day that I didn't see any swimmers, kayaks or SUPs in the cave or nearby. In addition, the lifeguard was on full whistle that day and I heard more than just one warning from the boat.
And in fact, 4 days before my attempt to swim, the government banned the cave for swimmers, SUPs and kayaks. The biologist told me this when I asked and said that she was very happy that the cave was only accessible to boats again and that the boats had to regularly "rescue" swimmers who had underestimated the sea and overestimated their own swimming skills. In addition, the stones are still being studied and therefore it is primarily for the protection of the cave. And I'm honestly very glad that I was able to see this beauty without SUPs, kayaks or other people. It was really very worth it.
Afterwards we went directly along the coastline back to the harbor and we also drove into a few more caves and saw them from the inside.
I also saw the highly official unicorn remains in the rock.
Overall, it was a simply impressive tour that will put a smile on my face for a long time.
After this tour I took a look at the city of Lagos and I'll show it to you in the next post.
*dolphin spam end*
Your Britta