Dolphin Bow-Riding (2009)

That elegance!

I wonder what the risk of damage is if they get hit by the bow. Perhaps it's simply not physically possible, within certain parameters.

That's Jonathan Livingston Dolphin.

A thing I noticed about “guarantees” with tours similar to those, is they don’t refund money, they offer a future tour for free (non-transferable).

So the guarantee is a signal that it’s likely to happen, but if I’m in the area on vacation, I’m very unlikely to use the guarantee. Who wants to do the same event again on your limited time, even if they aren’t already booked up?

And knowing this it changes my expectation from “definitely seeing this” to “yeah, probably”

Enough people probably do feed the dolphins that they are enticed to any boat, just in case. Irregular rewards are the most powerful motivators.

All along the Indian River in Florida you can find them in the spring and early summer. They are just inquisitive of humans and have come to see them as supportive. They can be territorial though. When I sail my boat, I love seeing them ride with my bow and guide me out to see. It's like a good luck charm or something. I throw them a fish as I go. Amazing animals. Super intelligent.

One thing I have noticed as a sailor is that they have a strong preference towards bow riding with sailboats over motorboats. They will do it happily with both, but if they have a choice they will almost always choose the sailboat. My guess is it has something to do with propeller noise.

Humans are too slow swimming. The bow riding maneuver needs to be able to enter in the wave and also to move away fast when you want to stop the ride. The risk to lose the wave and be killed by the propeller if you don't move away very fast is too high.

Bow wave raiding is definitely possible for us. I had done it a lot of times.

It's easy to paddle along a bow wave; but you need the power to handle speed changes, time it and the skill to balance on it. You see people doing it in Kayaks or on Surfskis and SUPs. It's related to how people surf waves long range on Surf skis, it is really quite enjoyable.

We call it "surfing"

Tail includes the fluke (flat lobes at the end) but starts before that. We know this because pelvic bones of cetaceans are still vestigial and can be found around the "second third" of the body or so. So we know where the legs would be located and after this is all tail. Tail muscles do the bigger part of the work.