We’ll just start with the punch line, Dana’s kayak got
nudged/hit/pushed/rammed by a bottlenose dolphin this afternoon.
The Place
It would be hard to get much further south in Louisiana than
Grand Isle, an island sitting in the Gulf of Mexico. In fact, you cross a 7 mile long toll bridge to
get here. At the Eastern-most tip of
the island is Grand Isle State Park where we are staying.
More about that in another post, because you REALLY want to hear about
the dolphins, don’t you…
The Adventure
This afternoon we took our kayaks out on the “Lagoon” side
of the park. After a brief portage
around a breakwater shown in this pelican picture, the lagoon fed into a huge
shipping channel around the end of the island. 
While we were paddling around, we noticed a group of
dolphins feeding in the distance. The fish they were chasing must have been
coming in our direction, because suddenly there were 8 of them all around us. You could hear them breathing each time they
surfaced. They were quite large, easily
10 feet long.
Two of them jumped out of the water (one from the left and
one from the right) and crossed in front of each other about 25 feet in front of
us. This really startled us. Then they did it again!
In this picture, you see the yellow of Dana’s boat in the
corner and the back of a dolphin right next to the boat, and the fin of the
dolphin behind it. That is how close
they were.
Suddenly, 2 dolphins must have been chasing the same
fish. They came right toward Dana’s
kayak. One submerged and swam under, the
other didn’t and hit the bow before submerging.
It was a gentle tap.
They stayed around us for about 30 minutes. They were still there when we decided to go
in.
Amazing!
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| Russ in the Lagoon |
I enjoy reading your blog. It looks like you are having a fabulous time!
ReplyDeletei am beside myself with jealousy!
ReplyDeleteYeah, a once in a life time experience! Actually, it was a little scary as it was happening. They were very big animals. But they were also gentle.
ReplyDelete