During my university years in Japan, I obtained my scuba diving license in the main island of Okinawa, and later traveled to remote islands there to dive. I was deeply moved, realizing, “There exists an entirely different world beneath the ocean, separate from the land where I live!”
Among all the seas I later explored around the world—Hawaii, Florida, the Caribbean, Central America, Australia, Thailand—the coral reefs I saw in Ishigaki Island in Okinawa at that time were by far the most beautiful.

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After graduation, I began working in public relations at a company in Tokyo, but found little fulfillment in my daily routine.

One day, while watching a TV program about marine life, I saw footage of dolphins swimming in the blue ocean. In that moment, I felt as if something had gripped my heart tightly, and tears began to flow uncontrollably.
I had never particularly been interested in dolphins before, so I couldn’t understand why I was so deeply moved. Wanting to find the answer, I devoured every book about dolphins I could find at the library. Yet most were either written by aquarium specialists and focused on ecology, or were about whaling, none of which provided the answer I was seeking. Then, in one book, I came across a sentence mentioning that “in other countries, research is being done on wild dolphins.” Something inside me immediately responded to those words—wild dolphins.

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This was in the days before the internet, but I began researching where such studies were being conducted. I thought to myself, rather than going to places like Hawaii or Australia where many Japanese people already lived, I should challenge myself by going somewhere less accessible and less frequented by Japanese travelers. That is how I chose Florida.

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With only modest savings from my time as an office worker, pursuing a degree was not an option. Instead, I enrolled in a small collage where tuition was affordable and where I could take classes such as oceanography, advanced scuba diving, and rescue diving—earning credits for such classes was something quite characteristic of Florida universities. Alongside my studies, I visited dolphin research facilities throughout Florida.

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Even on the nearby beaches, it was common to see dolphins. On the bridge I crossed on my way to go shopping, I could look down and see dolphins swimming below. At a friend’s house along the inlet, dolphins and manatees would often come right up to the shoreline. For the locals, this was an ordinary part of daily life—so natural that nobody made a fuss about it. For me, however, while dolphins had become a familiar presence, my desire to meet them underwater kept growing stronger.

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Eventually, I became the first Japanese participant in a week-long public program at the Dolphin Research Center in the Florida Keys, where people could learn about dolphins and the marine environment. The facility kept dolphins that had retired from aquariums or had been born in captivity and could not survive in the wild. To fund its operations, it also ran programs for tourists, allowing them to enter the water and hold onto a dolphin’s dorsal fin to be pulled along.

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During the program, I too had the experience of holding onto a dolphin’s dorsal fin and being pulled through the water. Yet, instead of feeling joy, I could only think how sad it was that these dolphins, even after leaving aquariums, still had to perform tricks to earn food and entertain humans. I found no enjoyment in it at all.

When I honestly shared these feelings with the staff, they told me, “In the Bahamas, there are places where people can swim with wild dolphins in the ocean.” The moment I heard that, I thought, That’s it!

 

I immediately contacted some of the boat operators there. But they explained, “People might imagine that in the Caribbean you can swim year-round, but unfortunately in winter the trade winds are too strong, and we can’t run trips. The next operation will be in May.”

By that time, I only had enough savings to cover living expenses until March. With great reluctance and a heavy heart, I returned to Japan—already determined that one day, I would go back to meet wild dolphins in their ocean home.