SailNet Community banner
  • SailNet is a forum community dedicated to Sailing enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about sailing, modifications, classifieds, troubleshooting, repairs, reviews, maintenance, and more!

Sailing With Dolphins!

2K views 19 replies 17 participants last post by  deckofficer 
#1 · (Edited)
I hate to keep posting these, I know the east coast folks are probably not sailing but wow...This is just amazing! Today I went out and it wasn't a great sail by any stretch. Not a lot of wind, seas had some swells, but it was still nice to be out there...As I was about to head back to the harbor I heard what I thought were LARGE whales...I looked into the distance and saw HUNDREDS of dolphins headed my way. I grabbed the camera and captured it! Here are a few images....more on my blog...

http://cuajota.com/?p=374







 
See less See more
4
#2 ·
Truly gorgeous pictures, NN.... nice...
 
#6 · (Edited)
A Nikon D700 and a lens that can zoom to 200mm. Not a cheap combo. You can download the jpeg and camera info shows up under properties.

Great photos though. I got one of an orca a while back that's similar to the third photo, but only because I got lucky and it popped up about 10 feet away from the boat. I was busy taking photos while the other guys were freaking out trying to reel in the fishing gear before the whales snagged it.
 
#10 ·
That's cool- I was out a few days ago outside Venice Beach with my wife and kids. It was my daughter's first time on the boat (she is 11) and she was very anxious and wanted to turn back. Then pod after pod of dolphins came around and saved the day. They spent about a half hour swimming around us. A seal even swam right up to the transom for a look-see. The picture here shows how close they came to us. It also shows my son's indifference as he was napping on the bow. Thanks you dolphins for entertaining my girl!
 

Attachments

#14 ·
The Dolphins do seem to be out in force now. On Wed of last week, we went out for a nice dat sail. It was 75 with a mild 10 knot breeze. We headed straight out away form land. About a mile off of Anacapa Island we saw a Grey Whale. We saw the spout and a couple of breaths. He then sounded with his flukes up in the air. It was great!. We continued out another 2 miles and saw a pod of Dolphin in the distance. It was starting to get acooler and the wind was building, so we turned around. We saw our second pod of Dolphin about a mile after turning around. They came to us and swam around and under the boat. Four played in the bow wave and two others stayed by the stern. This lasted about five minutes. About an hour later, the wind was up to about 20 knots and we felt like we were flying, we saw the third pod of Dolphin. These did not come very close to us but they were very clearly seen.

Newport Newbie, have you seen any of the Grey Whales yet?
 
#16 ·
We got really lucky 15 NM down from you Wed. when we ran into a pod of Orca. We saw them eat a seal and a couple seagulls, they appeared to be teaching the young to hunt. They let us hang around them for a couple hours until one of the commercial whale watching boats spotted us and a crowd formed. They were right along the 3 mile line and slowly worked in to 2 miles while circling. Incredible
 

Attachments

#19 ·
A couple of weeks ago offshore about 100 nm west of Sarasota, we had an interesting experience. The swells that came to tell us a gale was on it's way (8-10' according to the bouys) arrived just before dark. So did the largest pod of dolphins I have ever seen, at least 50 of them.

They would swim up into the swells as they passed near the boat, to get a good look at the occupants. It was US that was in the aquarium. They took turns riding up the swells and eyeballing us for many miles, until well after dark when the conditions deteriorated rapidly.

Seems like they can't resist the sound of a sailboat pushing a bow wave, but neither can I.




LT
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top