Welcome to Lovina, more commonly known as Bali’s dolphin playground. Outside the coast of this small town in northern Bali swims hundreds and hundreds of dolphins. Many people travel to Lovina for this particular reason and hope to see some or maybe even swim with them. Because of this, there are multiple tour operators offering visitors to go out by boat to certain locations in the ocean where the dolphins usually hang out. This is not entirely unproblematic due to multiple companies cooperating, going after the same group of dolphins at the same time, practically chasing them. If you want to go swimming with dolphins in Lovina, but want to do it more eco-friendly (which I highly suggest you should), I’m telling you everything you need to know below. I went with an independent tour operator, departing at a different time and to a different location, paying more respect to the dolphins.
My dolphin swimming experience in Lovina
I had set my alarm at 6AM to have some breakfast and then walk to the dolphin statue by the beach in Lovina, ready to meet my tour operator. At 7AM we climbed on to the little boat that was going to take us out at sea. Off we went as the sun was rising and we got a magnificent view of the Bali coastline.
”Do you see all the boats over there? That’s the other tour operators”, our boat driver said and pointed to this pack of boats on the horizon. These are the tour operators you should not go with, the ones departing at 6AM. It is probably around 50 boats heading out at the same time to the same place, chasing the dolphins. Luckily we passed these boats in the distance, and kept going.
It took almost 1.5 hours to get to the place where we hoped to see dolphins. We were two boats going, with 4 people in each boat. Our boat driver turned off the engine and we kept our fingers crossed that the dolphins would come to us, and just a few minutes later we were greeted by two of them jumping and spinning in the air. We put our snorkeling gear on and jumped in the water. The boat started moving slowly and we were hanging from trapeses on each side of the boat, looking underwater. We got lucky because so many dolphins started approaching us to swim along with the boat, although a bit deeper down below us. It was so cool to be out in the ocean so deep that you couldn’t see the ocean floor, just you and the dolphins out in the wild.
After being in the water for maybe 30 minutes, we started heading back to Lovina beach. Even then we were accompanied by dolphins swimming along our boat on both sides.
Here’s a video wrapping my dolphin morning in Lovina up. What a memory!
Important things to know when swimming with dolphins in Lovina
Pick the right tour operator
Many operators go out at the same time in the morning to cooperate, texting each other where you can find the dolphins, chasing after them. This is really stressful to the dolphins and can disrupt their normal behavior. Therefore, I do not recommend going out with the first tours of the day (these usually depart from Lovina around 5.30AM – 6AM).
When swimming with dolphins in Lovina, choose to go with Popeye Lovina. I am so glad that I went with this tour company because they were all about letting the dolphins come to us instead of us chasing them around. On their Instagram page @popeyelovina (not a paid ad) you’ll find a WhatsApp number that you can text to book your tour.
Do not touch or feed the dolphins
Touching or feeding dolphins can spread diseases as human bacteria can be harmful to these marine mammals.
For more things to do in Lovina, make sure to read my ultimate Bali itinerary guide.
