One of the greatest things about swimming outdoors is the chance to share your strokes with wildlife!
From cruising with whale sharks in Indonesia to watching marine iguanas in the Galapagos, we're sharing a selection of our 10 favourite encounters with wildlife from the past 20 years of running trips.
We also wanted to give honourable mentions to a few absent creatures we couldn't include in our list - due to a lack of video footage. Two that spring to mind are the huge, ribbon-like oarfish we recently saw near the beach in Baja and the famous blanket octopus (pictured) that visited our swimmers last year on the Turkish Lycian Way adventure.
10. Mobula Rays (Sea Of Cortez, Mexico)
What a moment! Just imagine being in the warm Sea of Cortez as these rays take off. In 2025, our swimmers were lucky enough to witness this display from water level.
FUN FACT: Mobula rays are also called 'devil rays' and can breach with spectacular jumps up to two metres in the air. It is thought they do this as part of mating displays or during hunts.
9. Dragons (Komodo, Indonesia)
Who doesn't love the scale-armoured dragons of Komodo Island in Indonesia? All our trips to Komodo include a visit to the main island where these huge lizards roam free.
FUN FACT: Komodo dragons are the world's largest and heaviest lizard. They are also venomous and have an incredibly keen sense of smell.
8. Lionfish (St Kitts & Nevis, Caribbean)
You don't soon forget the striking appearance of a lionfish if you're lucky enough to see one on the reef. We have videos from both Belize and St Kitts of these unique creatures, which can display bioluminescence in the deep-sea.
FUN FACT: 13 venomous spines run along the lionfish's dorsal fin, which pack a very painful sting. Be warned and keep your distance!
7. Sea Lions (Baja Peninsula, Mexico)
Playful sea lions never fail to delight our Baja and Galapagos SwimTrekkers. The males grow manes, which gives you a clue how they earned their curious name.
FUN FACT: Sea lions are talkative animals able to make loud vocalizations, including roars and trumpeting sounds.
6. Turtles (Yasawa Islands, Fiji)
Many SwimTrek locations offer you the chance to swim with turtles, from Milos to Hawaii. This lone turtle in the blue-green shallows of Fiji was just particularly appealing.
FUN FACT: The sex of a turtle is determined by the warmth of sand in their nests. Warmer sand produces more female turtles, and cooler sand leads to more males.
5. Dolphins (Musandam Peninsula, Oman)
If you ever want to hear SwimTrekkers clap and shout with happiness, just send a pod of dolphins to surf the wake of their boat after a long day of swimming.
FUN FACT: The waters of Oman are actually home to a variety of different species, including spinner, common, and bottlenose dolphins.
4. Marine Iguanas (Galapagos Islands, Ecuador)
Surely one of the highlights of our Galapagos trips is watching marine iguanas crawl out into the sea to go foraging for algae in the shallows.
FUN FACT: These iguanas are the only lizards that forage in the sea. They feed on algae and expel any salt they ingest with powerful sneezes.
3. Manta Rays (Raja Ampat, Indonesia)
The above video shows a squadron of manta rays gliding gracefully ahead of our swimmers among the islands, cays and shoals of Raja Ampat.
FUN FACT: Mantas are the world's largest ray with a large brain-to-body ratio indicative of high intelligence.
2. Whale Sharks (Sea Of Cortez, Mexico)
Lucky swimmers on our recent trips to Baja saw these gentle giants as they surfaced from the green depths. These filter feeders are welcome visitors on trips we run to their warm natural habitats around the world - places like Fiji, Indonesia and the Philippines.
FUN FACT: Don't let the name throw you off, whale sharks are not whales, but they are in fact the world's largest fish.
1. Pilot Whales (Big Island, Hawaii)
There's no real winner since every encounter is magical, but we had crown one, so we dug up this treasure from our trips last year to Hawaii. This pod of pilot whales kept our swimmers coming as they threaded through the deep sea. They are highly social animals willing to linger in the company of a few straggling SwimTrekkers.
FUN FACT: Again, someone has been misnaming these plucky cetaceans. Pilot whales are actually the second largest species of dolphin in the world (not a whale). In fact, they fall behind another misplaced member of the dolphin family - the orca.
