Talking to dolphins

Press, 3 July 1978, Page 11

Talking to dolphins

Wade Doak is known for his books and research in the underwater world and more recently for his efforts to communicate with dolphins. “A Tale Of Dreams And Dolphins,” on TVI this evening, chronicles the events leading up to one of the most exciting happenings during this research. Made in the Bay Of Islands, this film shows how Doak and his crew have attempted to communicate with the wild dolphins in a variety of ways. They have swum among them in a dolphin suit, broadcast music and messages through speakers in the hulls of their catamaran, and they have skimmed above them in a hammock slung between the two hulls, enabling them to make physical contact. Dolphins and men have a long history of free association in New Zealand, Pelorous Jack and Opo were remarkable examples of this relationship, yet that in both

instances the dolphins had to be protected from man. Doak says that dolphins are loathe to trust man too much. Wade Doak can tell of many ways of communicating with the dolphins, including telepathy. Bob Fiegel is a person he considers to have genuine psychic power. He told Doak of a dream he had in which a large dolphin communicated with him telepathically, putting into his mind the words “te puhi”. Fiegel is an American and knows no Maori. When Doak interviewed a Maori elder, Waipu Pita, about his experience of dolphins he asked him the meaning of “te puhi.” “That’s the flowing out of breath through the dolphin’s blowhole,” he said. “It’s not a dream when it’s like that . . . it’s real."