the Editor says: In recent years, more and more people have become passionate about travelling abroad in search of whales and dolphins. When swimming alongside these captivating marine mammals, diving safely and respecting marine life is of the utmost importance. This article is reprinted from a post shared by Fishman Freediving instructor Audrey. Let's approach these remarkably sentient ocean beings with reverence, and dance with them in the sea!
Beyond Legal Regulations — What Matters Even More
Around 2015–2016 I began transitioning from scuba diving to freediving. At first I struggled to adapt — no heavy gear, no scuba tank, no BCD to lean on. It was just one breath and my own two legs carrying me through the water.
Back then, bringing professional underwater photography equipment on a trip wasn't nearly as common in Taiwan. Diving wasn't done just to be photographed (for portraits); more people were holding cameras to shoot underwater marine life. Freediving was also seen as an extreme sport — something practiced by spearfishers, deep divers, and other specialists.
Later, as freediving became more mainstream, people's reasons for learning started to shift toward getting beautiful photos and videos like the influencers they saw online. Some women who had learned scuba diving even switched to freediving because they thought scuba gear looked unflattering in photos. As a freediving and mermaid / underwater dance instructor, I've always believed that diving carries real risks and requires a solid theoretical foundation as well as ocean knowledge — including marine life awareness and water safety — before you can dive happily and come home in one piece.
But as diving has gradually become more recreational and influencer-driven, people have slowly lost sight of these things. I often say there is so much that certifications don't teach you, and instructors themselves must keep learning from many sources — much like how passing a driving test doesn't mean you're ready to take a car on the road. Bringing this back to the topic of swimming with marine animals: when natural, leisure-based whale and dolphin encounters become commercialised — whether in Sri Lanka, Tonga, Mauritius, Japan, or other destinations that Taiwanese travellers frequently visit — what's legal in Location A may not be legal in Location B.
Beyond what the law says, a diver's behaviour, core competencies, and respect for the ocean are what matter most! On the flight back to Taiwan, I want to share a few key points about swimming with whales and dolphins:
1. Your Freediving Skills and Ocean Experience
Freediving courses in Taiwan are typically conducted in deep pools or calm, sheltered waters. When swimming with whales and dolphins, however, you will almost certainly encounter different sea conditions and currents. Before joining any such trip, honestly assess yourself on the following:
- Given the currents and swell, do you know from which part of the boat you should enter the water?
- Can you repeatedly and efficiently clear your mask and snorkel?
- Can you control your direction in the water to avoid contact with marine animals, the hull, or the boat's stern propeller?
- Do you have a strong safety awareness, follow the buddy system, and maintain a distance close enough to assist your dive buddy if needed?
- If you become separated from your dive buddy and the boat, can you handle the situation on your own?
2. Choosing a Commercial Tour
Students who have taken my courses know that safety is our top priority. I personally never take on the combined roles of photographing multiple people while simultaneously instructing and providing safety supervision — especially in open water. Trying to do both at once means no one's safety is truly being watched.
Does the group you're joining match your skill level? Is there a dive buddy you know well enough to provide mutual supervision? Or does the tour provide a dedicated safety instructor? In freediving, one-to-many supervision is simply not possible, because the instructor or safety diver is also diving on a single breath, just like you. If multiple people need rescue assistance at the same time, who gets helped first? The buddy pairing by skill level, student-to-instructor ratio, and safety setup all matter enormously.
Fishman Freediving and Mermaid Sea have, over many years of dive activities, only ever accepted our own students. This is because our instructors know each student's individual abilities and can arrange appropriate buddy pairings and safety protocols. We regularly train our students in freediving skills and rescue techniques, and we also run ocean safety seminars. A safety diver accompanies all our outings.
If you are joining an online group trip, please do your own due diligence — assess the organiser's ocean competency, experience, crisis management and response capability, rescue skills, professional certifications, whether a licensed travel agency is involved, and whether insurance is provided.
Holding a freediving instructor certification and having underwater photography experience does not, by itself, qualify someone to run paid, professional activities in open water. Additional experience and proper measures are also required.
— Fishman Freediving Instructor Audrey
Online group trips are increasingly common, but because your life is your own, you shouldn't place it entirely in someone else's hands or depend completely on any one person. Carefully evaluate whether a given trip and group are truly right for you.
3. Accident Prevention When Swimming with Whales and Dolphins
On this trip, in the same stretch of ocean, someone was bitten by a shark (because they grabbed and touched its tail), and someone else was struck by a boat's stern propeller. Both were taken to hospital for treatment.
As I always say: prevention beats cure. Touching marine life should always be avoided — or better yet, a respectful distance should be kept. Yet it sometimes happens due to a specific goal (getting the shot), insufficient personal skill, or unavoidable circumstances (jostling, boat wake, currents). There is a clear difference between accidentally making contact and doing so intentionally. Either way, whether it harms you or damages the animal or its environment, the consequences are irreversible.
4. What Matters More Than Comparing Prices
Instruction, underwater photography, safety supervision, boat operation, dive guiding, and group leadership are all distinct professional disciplines. Receiving safe, professional service in each of these areas comes with a corresponding and fair cost.
If you want to save money, going independent is genuinely the cheapest option — but to cut those costs, you need to possess the equivalent skills yourself. If an organiser wants to reduce overhead by running a group trip, the participants must also meet a certain level of competency (including certifications and verified ability). Of course, all anyone can do is minimise risk as much as possible. Do you have a certification but haven't been in the water for a long time? Before joining a group, you should always be asked about your personal best, your dive trip history, and when you last dived or trained.
Compared to all of this, a human life is priceless. One narrow escape might be a stroke of luck — or perhaps you were well looked after and fortunate. But you can't count on that every single time. It's a matter of probability, and there are no second chances with life.
5. The Ocean Belongs to Everyone Who Loves It
Everyone has different motivations for learning freediving, mermaid swimming, or underwater dance. While the environment and trends continue to change, anyone can hold onto their own original reason for coming close to the ocean. The very first lesson of AIDA (freediving agency) Level 2 tells students that freediving has a wide range of applications — you might love competition, spearfishing, simply observing marine life, underwater photography, fitness, or personal challenge.
The ocean and the pursuit of diving do not belong exclusively to bikini influencers and glamorous women. I often hear men say that some instructors and underwater photographers only look after and photograph attractive women, and only edit footage and images that generate traffic and likes. But if instruction, activity, or photography fees have been paid, every single client and student has paid equally — and every one of them is a human life.
That said, this kind of dynamic is rarely one-sided. Everyone ultimately has the power to choose, and that evaluation rests with each individual.
6. The Risk of Hypothermia
Boat dives often involve long stretches of time at sea, and ocean conditions can change in an instant. Whale and dolphin encounters in particular may require extensive searching and waiting. Most people opt for a towel-lined jacket or a boat dive jacket, but in wind and rain — or on a smaller vessel — even these options can lead to hypothermia over a long period. I recommend bringing a thick, button-up rain jacket to wear over your outer layer, or a waterproof outer garment that covers at least your core body down to your thighs.
Hypothermia is a risk that people frequently overlook. Freediving theory courses address it too: when you are hypothermic, you cannot effectively hold your breath and dive — it affects your heart rate, and hypothermia can incapacitate you faster than lack of water or food, leading to shivering, loss of consciousness, and cardiac arrest. Bring a thermos of hot water and some quick-energy food as well.
The above was written on 8 October 2024, beneath the skies of the Indian Ocean. Thank you to my students for taking such beautifully angled photos of me — though I should say, this is not what I usually look like. Dishevelled, exhausted, or bundled up head to toe in a wetsuit is the real picture. — Fishman Freediving Instructor Audrey.
Fishman Freediving Instructor Audrey
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