Visiting the dolphin
The 20 minute film by watervideo will be shown on Gothenburg filmfestival 2003
and at Gothenburg UW filmfestival 2003

Pictures from the visit - here
Karmoy in Norway is not that remote,but norwegian roads are curvy and tiresome. The trip to the dolphin also includes several ferrytrips.
It is quite a unique thing beeing able to visit a wild dolphin.
The dolphin named Flipper by the locals has shown up for nearly 30 years now. Returning to he same harbours, once in a while spending a night sleeping beside his favourite boat. Daytime he is of to sea doing whatever dolphins are doing.
There are actually some 8 dolphins around the world who have left their pods and sought out humans.
Flipper - is now believed to be dead (2003)
Why?  Ambassadeurs some say. Others think the indivuduals has been outcast from their pod. Jolo in Bahamas, Funghi on Ireland. Ollin in Egypt is another. But her just having had a baby she has left her usuall shores and spent more time with a nearby pod. Maybe trying togive her young one a proper upbringing - who knows. There are eight of us coming to Karmoy. Some mediapeople like myself and some, what I call, dolphin hippies. And some curious and dedicated snorklers. We rent the old lighthouse which includes a small boat. We are prepared with scubagear and freediving gear - but aaawgh - its easter and only 6 degrees celcius surface water.
Every ferry, every fishingboat we eyeball - since Flipper is known to surf there waves back and to his homeport - which is mostly Haugsund.
Three days full of anticipation and then the sight of a backfin and then he is gone - my companions start doubting me, mocking me - "what was it you saw?".
But the day after - there he is again, following the red fishingboat out at sea. The same night we find him asleep beside his favourite boat in a smaller harbour. We wake him up gathering around him in the water and for some time he recieves our cuddling - but decides after an hour that his nightssleep is too precious and he heads of to the otherside of the harbour - hiding from us.

He is quite old and scarred. 30 human years at least and I must confess he is not what I expected or wished for. With my aquired freediving skills I expected to met him down in the deep on his terms - but he prefers beeing tickled, rubbed and scrubbed at the surface taking no notice of me swimming gracefully 5 meters beneath him.
After we met him that easter 2002 he dissapeared for several months appearing only briefly the during he summer.