THE RED, THE DEAD & THE MED
‘And one more thing,’ said the teenager giving us a briefing before handing us over to our snorkelling guide. ‘Don’t smile when you see a dolphin.’
We were about to swim with dolphins at the eponymously named Dolphin Reef on the Gulf of Eilat, in the Red Sea, the southernmost point of the little shard that is Israel.
Seeing dolphins was so pleasing, the young man explained, that people often smiled broadly, breaching the tight clasp around the mouthpiece of their snorkels and inadvertently sucking in water. We were also instructed not to pet the dolphins.
My partner and I waded into the warm water at the lake-like shore holding hands as we’d been told to and sunk into the benign blue of the Red Sea, losing ourselves in the rich other-worldly serenity of the underwater world. Dolphins flitted by every so often, providing a little frisson each time, but never pausing long enough for us to smile at or pet them.
The rest of the day, the last of a two-week round trip of Israel, was spent soaking up the early spring sunshine,
