By Evie

We were on a day trip to see dugongs around Koh Libong and near the end of it, just when we had given up looking for any wildlife, our guide pointed out something in the water…

He ran up to the front of the boat and pointed out a moving black fin. Then it jumped and dived – I had never seen one before but I knew what it was at once. A dolphin! What else would jump and dive and then completely vanish? Or I thought it had vanished until – whoosh!  ­– there it was again! About 4 or 5 times.

No it wasn’t an ‘it’; it was a ‘they’ – two – two dolphins.

We asked the guide if we could swim with them; he gave us the thumbs up because he didn’t he speak enough English to say “yes”.

By the time we all had our snorkels on the dolphins had gone, however we decided to try anyway. We clambered into the water and began to swim towards where the dolphins had been. When we turned and swam back to the boat, I suddenly realized how deep the water was – so deep I couldn’t see the bottom even though the water was very clear. Ow! I bumped my head on the boat and climbed on.

I say now: “I wish we had seen dugongs as well because that is what we set out to do. Or maybe that would be a bit too lucky.”