Capt. Dave's Ocean Report

As seen weekly in the Dana Point News/Orange County Register

July 28, 2005

Well the red tide is still here. Just when everyone thought it was over – it’s back again.
It does seem to be waning, but it’s not gone yet.

We are seeing lots of dead jellyfish more than I have ever seen- most likely the result of the red tide organisms dying off (see my column from last week). Some of these jellyfish are a deep burgundy color - very unusual.

On Sunday the Sea Explorer reported seeing a blue whale two miles out. It’s been a low year, compared to the last two, for blue sightings in our area – come on blues lets go!

On Thursday we called the Sea Explorer over to a playful pod of offshore bottlenose we were looking at. After watching them for a while the skipper of the Sea Explorer, Mike Bursk told me he was heading back to the dock and on his way in he would leave a nice big wake for the dolphins to play in. So I told my passengers to get their cameras ready and Mike got the Sea Explorer really moving. As he passed, a short distance from the pod, many of the 50 or so dolphins immediately swam over behind his boat and started surfing the stern wave he created, with some of them leaping off of it. One of them actually did an upside down surf-leap over and over again a total of 18 times while keeping pace with their boat.. See Photo.

Bottlenose and common dolphin love to ride the pressure and stern waves created by a boat moving through the water - like a surfer. They will even follow a whale like this; I have footage of them doing so in my film.

Believe it or not I actually got in a bit of hot water because I said in my film that dolphins love to ride the pressure wave of a boat. One of the final judges at the International Wildlife Film Festival told me that my use of the word love was anthropomorphication of these animals, (giving them human like characteristics), and he, being a biologist, did not think that was accurate. He loved my film otherwise, so he had decided to vote for it, and fortunately for me so did the other judges. (The film won seven awards.) I told him that I stood by what I had said, and that after so many years with them I was confident that they experienced a great deal of pleasure bow riding and that leaping off the stern wave was pure joy for them. He stuck by his belief that you cannot know what emotions an animal experiences and that this behavior could be nothing more than pure instinct.
Well readers, check out the photo and let me know what you think: joy or instinct?

Another funny thing about the bottlenose dolphin this week - they would not bow ride when they were in the red tide. As soon as they got into clearer water they came right over to us. I think they did not feel comfortable being inches away from our boat with nearly zero water clarity, this might explain why they rarely bow ride close to shore where the clarity of the water is poor.

We are still seeing lots of common dolphins and many calves, some just a few days old - little loaves of bread with fetal folds hopping around with their moms.

Right in the middle of this feast of common dolphin we had two trips where we could not find even one dolphin. This is always disappointing and frustrating for all involved. I have over a 92% success rate locating dolphins or whales but it does happen occasionally that we cannot locate any.

Well, that’s it - till next week. May God richly bless you. Capt. Dave, over and out.

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Capt. Dave Anderson runs Capt. Dave’s Dolphin Safari out of Dana Point Harbor. He recently completed the award winning documentary film “Wild Dolphins and Whales of Southern California.” Capt. Dave will be sharing his photos and stories and letting us know what he and other skippers are seeing off the Orange County coast. For a daily log of sightings see www.dolphinsafari.com.

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