The Twisted but True Tales from the Nauticat: January 2010

Dancing With the Dolphins

Most of my blog is just a humorous look at the interesting people that I get to sail with and whose company I really enjoy. But every once and a while I do run into something very interesting and unique to me. And one of these occurences happened on January 22, 2010 when i was anchored inside the reefs on the Provinciales at the Turks and Caicos Islands. We were in about 8 ft of water on a nice sandy bottom in front of a gorgeous long sandy beach called Grace Bay that is wall to wall resorts. And they are beautiful resorts. But we were the only cruising boat there. And early in the morning a solitary dolphin swam up to our boat and slowly swam around us.

the 2 dolphins playing around the boat

We started taking pictures and when it seemed like it would stay a while we jumped into the water to swim with it. And it seemed to like the company as it just slowly circled the boat. We swam with it for about half and hour and then it slowly drifted away from us. The next thing we noticed was the dolphin playing in the wake of a dive boat that passed by us. But the dolphin dropped the dive boat and came back to our boat and was joined by a smaller dolphin that was quite lively and fast.

Derek swiming with the dolphin

They cavorted around the boat for a while longer and then the smaller dolphin left but the larger one stayed. And he just relaxed around the boat for the whole morning. After a nice long walk and swim on the beach we came back to the boat and he was still there, probably enjoying the shade. Another good swim with him and it was time for us to move.

Just slowly lazing around the boat

We were only going a few miles up the beach, just for a change of scenery and the dolphin followed along with us. Once we got to the new anchorage that was in front of the Club Med we got another swim and snorkel with the dolphin. And he attracted lots of attention from the passing tourist boats. Eventually he swam off to other adventures and left us alone but very happy. There is just something about a dolphin that soothes your soul and makes you feel very comfortable. This was the closest and longest swimming encounter I have had with wild dolphins and it was wonderfull. It makes for a good day and lovely company.

This has been a good year for seeing dolphins. We were joined by a pod of about 9 dolphis off San Juan , Puerto Rico that stayed and played for about 20 minutes. Another small pod came on the way to Grand Turk, and 2 dolphins came to greet us when we were arriving in the Provinciales after crossing the Caicos Bank.