Brian Holmes & Sheila Stokes IT IS DIFFICULT to pin-point when the expectation that the dolphin discovered swimming around in the Dingle harbour entrance channel would always be found there, rather than the stay being an ephemeral event as most of these aquatic serendipities turn out to be.
And then we arrived in Dingle. It would be a different setup now since the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group has an enthusiast on every headland reporting cetacean activity and Bord Fáilte has promoted the Wild Atlantic Way into second place of Ireland’s tourist attractions behind the Guinness Storehouse. However, back in the early ’80s, the west coast was a remote location awaiting anyone with a spirit of adventure.
The dolphin did not seem to receive any material reward for this activity so, like the reason for his selection to make Dingle his home port, only anthropomorphic speculation could offer a reason for this chosen way of life. As such the relationship developed very quickly and offered tremendous photographic opportunities to record the events, except when our fingers were so numb, we could not press the camera shutter.There is not space in this article to describe all the varied games we were treated to , ranging from leaping over our heads, playing tag with fish he had caught , sneaking up behind us and hitting our heads with his beak and slapping his tail from port to starboard over our heads.