Can you swim with the dolphins in the outer banks?

Question

Me and my family are going to the outer banks, North Carolina this august and i would like to take my mom to swim with the dolphins. is there a place

Answer 1

Can't find a place to swim with, but "And then there are the dolphins that swim by every day. They must have body clocks because you know that at a certain time in the morning, they will be swimming south and then at a certain time in the afternoon, they'll be swimming back north."

http://traveler.homeaway.com/HA_traveler...

Answer 2

Yeah, I couldn't find a place to swim with dolphins in NC. The are dolphins swimming in the ocean. However, I wouldn't recommend you go swimming with them, they are still wild animals.

There are some dolphin watch tours

http://www.outerbankscruises.com/

http://www.outerbanks.org/activities/wat...

dolphin swims

http://www.dolphinworld.org/fl-swims.htm

http://www.aquaexplorers.net/dolphin_swi...

Answer 3

Look, you don't need a special place that charges a lot of money to swim with dolphins, but if you want to swim with dolphins in the open ocean, you must at least know how to properly mind your manners or they won't even get close to you.  

The best advice I can give you for swimming with dolphins in the wild is to strictly observe the Whale Watch Guidelines that accompany the Marine Mammal Protection Act.  Many years ago, when the Act first went into effect, my mentor, John Olguin, Curator emeritus of the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium, asked me if I'd like to take a stab at writing a set of whale watch guidelines.  When I finished, he read what I had written and said he was going to forward it without change and with the recommendation that it be accepted as written.  It was.  

When I wrote those guidelines, I wasn't trying to keep people as far from them as possible, I was only telling them what they had to do to see whales and dolphins up close without chasing them.  If you stop 100 yards away from any cetacean or pod of cetaceans and parallel them at that distance, they will usually come over to have a look at you eventually, and then you'll get a really good look.  When they come closer, stop your boat and drift, or better yet, turn it off.

Don't jump in the water with them when they arrive or they'll be gone in an instant.  Instead grab a life jacket and head for the swim step on the stern of your boat, if it has one, or launch a dinghy, tie it to the big boat and get in it.  You want to be as close to the surface of the water as you can get without getting in it, and you want to have a large plywood box with a glass bottom with you.  Spend some time looking at the dolphins through your viewing box and letting them look at you.  Make eye contact whenever possible, but never point your nose directly at them because doing so is extremely rude.  If a dolphin ever points its head directly at you, especially if its  head is lower than its body, you aren't just being insulted, you're being threatened with great bodily harm and you'd best stop whatever you're doing instantly.

Anyone who has ever worked with dolphins in captivity will tell you that they have strong telepathic and empathic abilities, and compared to the wild ones, the captive dolphins seem almost comatose by comparison.  What you must do next is ask for an invitation to join them, and you do that by thinking about how much fun it would be to swim with them and about how you are not going in until and unless you are invited to do so, try to imagine what such an invitation might look like.  When the invitation comes, it may not be as you envisioned, but you won't have any trouble recognizing it as an invitation.

Enter the water slowly, wearing your life jacket, and not just for safety's sake.  Your life jacket says you aren't there to swim with them, and they won't spend time showing you how clumsy you are in the water by swimming around you faster than you can turn.

Once in the water, keep your hands at your sides at all times, whether you are floating or swimming, and never, ever reach for them.  If it is rude to approach them or even point your face at them, you can imagine how rude reaching for them must be.  If you want to feel a dolphin, think "I'm going to keep my hands at my sides no matter what, but I want to know what a dolphin feels like," and let the dolphin take it from there.

Don't try to do anything but be there and be open, and let the dolphin take the lead in your interaction