Dolphin encounters

[alphakitty]

Hi all....We'll be visiting Key West on our cruise and would like to do a dolphin/snorkel catamaran tour. Does anyone have any recommendations for a company? There are a few on the Ports Of Call boards, but none are very recent. Thanks for any help. :)

[alphakitty]

Has no one done any of these dolphin/snorkel tours while in Key West? No one on the boards lives in Key West? :(

[markwojo]

We were in Key West last week and went out on a catamaran sail with Capt Carla on the boat Java Cat (goggle Java Cat and Key West and you should find her pretty easily). Our trip was to a mangrove island to kayak, then to a coral formation area to snorkel, however we ran across a pod of 8 or 9 dolphins that were feeding around a sand bar and she gladly stopped so we could take in the scene for a while. She mentioned that she had done tours more focused on dolphins in the past, but had tired of it somewhat because of the growing quantity of operators chasing after dolphins in the Key West area. I'm going to write up a longer review on the day as I thought it was an exceptional day and feel like helping a business person that does such an outstanding job, but wanted to post on your thread as well. For $90 bucks a piece to have a boat to just my wife and I and the captain for about 5 hours seemed like an awesome deal relative to what some of the shore excursions cost through the cruiseline for much less and no where near the intimacy of just us.

[Aquahound]

I'll be completely honest with you. For wild dolphin encounters, you probably won't get too many reactions from locals. Most locals that love our environment (even without being total hippy liberals) don't support tours chasing wild dolphins.

 

As for snorkling/diving, Sebago or Fury are good, repuable companies.

[alphakitty]

Thanks for the replies. Good info Mark. :)

 

I appreciate the candor Aquahound. I kinda thought doing a wild dolphin excursion would be kinder/gentler than doing a dolphin encounter with penned in dolphins. I don't like the idea of them in captivity, so thought this a nicer option. I appreciate another perspective. :)