By: Ignatia Dyahapsari (WWF-Indonesia)

There was something special when my ground team and I returned from our data collection point on Saponda Island. There are two villages on this small island, Saponda Laut and Saponda Darat. Our journey today was colored by the story of the discovery of a charismatic species by the villagers.

Charismatic species are endangered and protected marine life such as turtles, dugongs, dolphins, whales, whale sharks and manta rays. Some of the fishermen we interviewed told us that they often see dolphins. It seems that for them, seeing dolphins is common.

"There are so many dolphins around here," they said. I became sad because during the trip to Saponda Island, we did not see a single dolphin. Perhaps, it wasn't meant to be. "I want to see dolphins too!" I told them. Hopefully, I'll get it on the way back. The thing is, they said, dolphins appear in the morning and evening.

Time was running and before the afternoon we had to leave to catch Menami. Our target is to leave the island by 2 o'clock. If it's too late in the afternoon, the dinghy will have a hard time catching up with Menami who is moving towards the next point. Dinghy is the small fiber boat we used. It only fits a few people and cannot sail fast, so the journey to Menami can take more than 1 hour.

The clock was already 2pm, all the teams had gathered at the dock and immediately set off. Suddenly in the middle of the journey, seen from the corner of the eye something jumped. It turned out to be dolphins! And a lot!

Everyone on the Dinghy immediately looked back for the dolphins. Yulius (WWF-Indonesia) immediately took his handphone and opened the occasional observation form. We were also tasked with inputting data on charismatic species that were accidentally encountered. While we were busy ourselves, the pod of dolphins slowly disappeared.

We tried to look for them again, but we couldn't find them. Suddenly, a pod of dolphins appeared on the other side of the ship. Apparently, they passed under the ship without us knowing. We tried to record and photograph the pod of dolphins, but did not get a clear picture.

Arriving at the ship, it turned out that other teams also met dolphins. While resting and relaxing, someone shouted, "dolphins!" Everyone immediately crowded around Menami's starboard hull. Two dolphins appeared. We rushed to grab our handphones and cameras and scrambled for the best position to photograph them.

Even more encouraging, the two dolphins swam around the boat for quite a while and followed the boat. Apparently, dolphins often chase passing ships. Indeed, as the Saponda Island fishermen said, dolphins are fun to watch.