When I first started sailing, spotting any kind of wild life on the water was super exciting. I’d scan the water to catch a glimpse of a seal or a porpoise, or scour the sky for eagles. Now, it’s the times we bring guests aboard that I’m reminded how spoiled one can get when having a sailboat.
I will say though that spotting porpoises on the water still gets me excited. Those special times they decide to play with your sailboat and jump across your bow is just such a fun sight! Jumping and racing along side you, or racing you at the bow of the boat never gets old to watch.
When delivering our sailboat after we bought it years ago a porpoise scared the crap out of me. I was sitting alone in the cockpit when I heard this sudden splash right behind me. Turning around I realized a porpoise had come out to play right off the boat. To this day, I still scour the water watching for porpoises and hope that they will come back and play.
A couple years ago while traveling by Stuart Island, we were hanging out in Cordero Channel waiting for slack tide so we could go through the rapids. We had some time to kill so we started floating around Cordero Channel, checking out what we could of what seemed to be a golf course and the other development along the shore. As we were getting acquainted with Cordero Channel, we were concerned with an intense area of water turbulence. Cordero Channel should be nice calm water, what’s wrong with the water! As we got a better look we realized it was a huge pod of porpoises!
We joked it was the swim team going for a serious team swim, as when we did a rough count there must have been over 100 of them, they were everywhere! For those that have witnessed this themselves, understand that this video does not do it justice. Porpoises were beside us, behind us, going underneath us, in front, it was amazing!
For those that have had similar experiences, I’m sure you can agree that it truly is a memory one will never forget, and only hope that other sailors get the privilege of this experience.
How lovely and lucky was that porpoise encounter? Holy moley, I hope someday I’ll get that kind of adventure with those creatures!! Congrats.
It really was amazing, I’m always on the lookout now when we’re in an area with good tides!
This is awesome! I live in Florida so I’m just surrounded by dolphins – it makes me so happy to see this! 🙂
More than likely those are dolphins as they travel in big groups. Porps are more solitary and their groups are 2 or 3.