Our friend the dolphin

[oldbilbo]

Brings a smile on a grey day....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-21176914

 

[Topcat47]

It certainly did.

 

[Pleiades]

Ta for that oldbilbo - a top link.
Never tire of chatting with dolphins when they are cruising in company with Pleiades - obviously they have to drag sea anchors to match our speed.
Don't have any time at all for those gits that slaughter em in far eastern waters.

Robin
Pleiades of Birdham
MXWQ5

 

[OGITD]

Cheers OB

I think you've started a Dolphin thread .....

Apologies for the poor quality & editing .... but still worth sharing:

 

[oldbilbo]

Taken from an account of our good friend Pugwash's last passage, written without much skill, but for his family.....

We were in no hurry. The pleasure for us was in the passage-making. “It’s many a year since last I put into Salcombe.” I agreed. “Did I ever tell you about….?” John smiled, and we swopped stories while S*****a lurched and rolled her way back towards Bolt Head and Starehole Bay, where the wreck of the famous Cape Horn clipper ‘Herzogin Cecilie’ lies below the tall cliffs. “That’d make a perfect passage anchorage,” agreed John, “But there’s someone in there already. We won’t disturb them. Let’s head on into the river - I know a good spot….”

Engine purring and burbling quietly in the twilight, S*****a was pointed towards Salcombe Bar and the river’s entrance, where racing skipper Rob James was lost overboard from his giant catamaran one wild winter’s night, and Bilbo, his girl and his trimaran found welcome haven from yet another violent storm.

Aligning S*****a on the paired channel markers, John made towards the middle of the entrance, with its shallow sandbar. “There should be half-a-metre safe clearance for us under the keel, but the sand shifts and depths can vary, so we’ll just go slowly….”

Away over to the left, close in under the steep rocks and almost invisible in the half-light, we made out a low motorboat, stopped. “What d’you think they’re doing? Are they fishing, or setting crab pots? John focused his binoculars on them. “There’s four of them - a family, perhaps. They don’t seem to be concerned at all, but they’re pointing this way.” At that, the water on both sides of S*****a boiled briefly, then stilled. “What’s going on?” I asked, puzzled. Concerned for a floating gill net across our path, maybe, or some other entanglement, John shifted the gears into neutral. Against the last of the ebb tide, S*****a came almost immediately to a halt.

The water around us boiled again. “Look! It’s a big shoal of fish! On both sides….” Just then, a few yards away, we heard the quiet but unmistakable “Phwoosh!” of a dolphin exhaling. Then another. And yet another…

“They seem to be feeding on this shoal of fish, which could be using our hull and keel as a shelter. Look! The dolphins are all just to seaward, and you can hear their ‘click-k-k-k-s’. Do you think they’re herding the fish up against the sandbar? Look! That one’s blowing a line of bubbles – and that one there…. They’re definitely herding the fish!”

We sat there for some minutes, enthralled. Fish in their hundreds surrounded us, crowding against the hull, while the dolphins, just dimly visible below our keel, darted in to feed, one by one. Determined not to disturb their evening meal further, we drifted seaward until well clear, then John engaged the engine at tickover, steering close by the motorboat around the spectacle - also witnesses to this rarely-seen event - and followed the red/green blinking channel markers up towards the lights of the little town....

 

[capnsensible]

Love them

 

[capnsensible]

Luurve them!! Kissin kippers.......

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