Tag Archives: Dolphins

Swimming with dolphins

This is the final day of Becky’s July Squares challenge theme of ‘Perspective.’ See more responses here.

I was planning on posting images relating to the final days of people who were human sacrifices on the island, a long time ago in case you’re wondering. But I changed my mind after an encounter with a pod of spinner dolphins a couple of days ago. I’ll post more photos tomorrow, but here are a couple to start with.

The top photo shows one of the dolphins coming over to check me out. In the bottom one, a group of dolphins cruises by below me. From my perspective, there are few finer things in life than such an encounter.

Spinner dolphins

Not long after I moved to Hawaii I was lucky enough to swim with a large pod of dolphins. They hung around the bay where I was for most of the day and, when I was in the water, swam around me with some curiosity. Back then I didn’t have a waterproof camera so didn’t get any photos.

Since then, I’ve seen dolphins from shore, but never got to swim with them again until recently. Then I encountered them twice within a couple of weeks. The first time I caught the tail end of a pod heading south along the coast. The second time I saw them a bit earlier, also heading south at speed and with purpose.

The water was murky so I didn’t get good photos, but since this is the first in-the-water photo of any kind that I’ve got of dolphins, I thought I’d post it anyway. Even though the pod passed without interacting with me, it was still a great moment to see them whizzing by with such grace and power.

Spinner dolphins

Spinner dolphin leap

Spinner dolphin leapingOn a recent walk I noticed some disturbance in the water not far offshore and was happy to see a school of 15 to 20 spinner dolphins. I thought they were headed south and set out to follow them from shore. Then they turned around and went north again. I followed. This happened several times, so I just sat down and watched while they tried to make up their minds.

Spinner dolphins get their name from the twirls they make when they leap from the water. It’s thought this activity helps dolphins know where others in the school are because the bubbles generated by their takeoff and return to the water are a good target for their echolocation.

Posted in response to this week’s Sunday Stills challenge on the theme of ‘Back to School’ (Yes, it’s a stretch!). See more responses here.

Spinner dolphins