Boating With Dolphins: Georgetown, SC To Charleston, SC

 

A few days ago, we went from Georgetown, South Carolina to Charleston.  That's a 70 mile day, mostly on the Atlantic.  

Doing that requires careful planning for weather and timing (not leaving when it's rough, or could become rough, and also timing the tide and available daylight).  My dad woke up at 6:00 a.m. because we planned to cast off at 6:30.  However, there was thick fog.  So we waited two hours for it to lift.  It didn't though so, eventually, we left at 8:00 am.  

Though the sun was trying to burn through, we couldn't see a boat more than a couple hundred feet away.

So why did we decide to head out in the fog?  We had to make Charleston before dark, and before the tide started ripping alongside the dock there.  (Charleston has pretty big, 5 foot tides.)  

Approaching a busy harbor and big marina after dark is scary.  All the lights can make it very confusing.  So is docking in the dark.  It's hard to see current and judge distances.  We've done it once before and don't want to do it again.  

We also left because we had experience navigating in fog last spring, relying 100% on charts, our depth gauge, and radar.

We ran the boat very slowly that first hour.  We also kept our doors open so we could hear other boats if they were near, and so we could poke our heads out to look into the fog.  It was very stressful and very tiring.  

  

When the sun started to burn through the fog, the glare was extreme.  Our sunglasses sure helped us.

Though we had started out pretty much at slack tide, we boated that first hour with a falling tide.  As the tide fell even further, it speeded up.  We were making about 9 knots at our normal rpm of 1750.  Normally we'd have been going 7 knots or so (a knot is 1.15 miles per hour).  By the time we got near the mouth of the Winyah Bay Inlet, at the Atlantic Ocean, we were flying!  (For a Nordhavn.)  I asked my dad to go full throttle for a minute so we could see how quickly the boat would go with the strong tail-tide.  It had reached what I think was 4.5 knots.  Our top SOG (speed over ground) was 12.2 knots.  We've only beaten that speed once -- going under the Blue Water Bridge where Lake Huron spills toward Lake Erie.  There, we reached 13.4 knots. 

My dad and I loved seeing the dolphin appear unexpectedly in this video we we're taking of the current.  

Then, almost out of nowhere, even though there was no wind, we hit large waves.  This can happen at the mouth of inlets when the tide is ripping.  Water meets water, and sometimes, wind.  These were lumpy waves, not whitecaps.  When they mixed with ocean swells, their size occasionally doubled.  Most were 4'  feet.  But there were some 6 footers.  One in particular towered over the others.  It was gigantic!  

That wave was the first to go over our bow.  I videoed it coming, and what it did to us.  

Gigantic rhymes with Atlantic.  (Sorry.)

Nothing broke, but a lot of stuff sure shifted.

After that, we slowed to about 4 knots for a bit.  Doing that allowed us to time their frequency better so we would roll more gently over them, rather than hit them.  Then, we turned southward and were out of the inlet waters.  In minutes, the waves disappeared and we were left with the gentle swells we had planned for.  Soon, even they quieted down, and our day became a perfect one to be on the ocean.  Those don't happen often.  When they do, it's unbelievably peaceful.

Amazing!  Looking back over the Atlantic.  The only waves most of that day were our own.

About half way to Charleston, we heard a noise in the water next to the boat.  My dad looked over the side and saw... dolphins.  

Photo from our port side pilothouse window.

We've seen  a lot of dolphins on our trip, but none had ever swam with us.  Just the other day I had asked my dad why.  We both guessed it was because our boat was too slow for them.  

So we'd pretty much given up hope it would ever happen with us.  And all of a sudden, there they were.  It was amazing seeing them swim!  To me, it looked like they were actually having fun, playing with our boat and putting on a show.

Here is the 2 minute 44 second video I took.  I had to split in into three clips to upload it, so here they are in order.  I think you'll really enjoy them.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

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Now, since this post is mostly about our fun dolphin experience, here's some information about them I think you'll find interesting.

Dolphins are mammals.  There are 40 species in the dolphin family.  They range in size from 5 feet 7 inches and 110 pounds, to 31 feet 2 inches and 11 tons (22,000 pounds).  

Whoah!  That's a lot of dolphin!  How can a dolphin be THAT big?  Well, the biggest ones, I found out, are Orcas, otherwise known as Killer Whales.  And believe it or not, they have also been known to play in a boat's wake.  

Here's a picture of that.

And here's a link to the must-see video.  My dad and I agree.  In a boat that small, we'd have been scared, big time!

 

https://youtu.be/vbh6qg8H3CY

At the smaller end of the dolphin family scale are porpoises.  Aren't dolphins and porpoises the same?  No.  Same family though.  Porpoises are smaller and less sleek than dolphins.  And while porpoises have bulbous heads and what looks like a beak, porpoises are more blunt at the front.  But the easiest way to spot the difference between porpoises and dolphins is by the shape of their dorsal fins. (Dorsal fins are the ones on the top of the mammal, in the middle.)  On porpoises, the dorsal is triangular.  On dolphins, it’s curved.

All dolphins live in "pods."  A pod is a group of 5 to 20 dolphins.  In rare cases they can gather in groups of up to 1000.  I call that a kilo-pod.  :)

Dolphins can travel at speeds of up to 18 miles per hour.  Since water is exactly 1,000 times more resistant than air (I looked it up) that tells you how powerful and streamlined they are.  

Most dolphin species live in the tropics.  Although Dolphins can travel up to 80 miles a day, they don't migrate.  However, they will move into warmer coastal waters in the winter.

Why do dolphins rise out and dip under the surface when they swim?  Unlike fish, which breathe through gills, dolphins have lungs.  They must come to the surface to catch a breath.  The frequency of this depends on their speed.  The faster they swim, the more often they need to catch a breath.

But now for the question you (and we) were really wondering.  Why do dolphins swim in a boat’s waves?  While it’s not certain, many believe they do this because a boat’s displaced water lets them “catch a wave.”  Just like with a surfer, timing it right allows them to go much further, faster, and with less effort.  It’s interesting to know this is similar to why birds migrate in V-shaped flocks.  The birds behind the leader can draft off the leader’s airflow.

So why do we, humans, like dolphins so much?  There are a few main reasons for this.  Dolphins are one of the smartest living creatures on earth, with one of the largest, most developed brains.  While they are not cognitive like humans, meaning they can’t reason, solve complex problems, plan, think quickly, and think in abstract terms like we can, they can learn to do remarkable things and solve simple problems.  Maybe you've seen videos of trained dolphins, or seen them at an aquarium show.

We especially like them because they have a characteristic that makes us smile.  THEIR smile.  Scientists have known for a long time that when we see a smile, it triggers the part of our brain where we process sensory rewards.  It’s sort of like giving us a cookie.  Seeing a smile, even if it’s not for us, makes us feel better.  How cool is that.  It also explains why Golden Retrievers are so loved.  Of all dogs, they have the friendliest “smile.”  Other dogs smile too.

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Now for the tough news about dolphins.  I think it's important to share it.  In my research about them, I read something that really shocked me:  the human impact on dolphins.

We've wondered many times as dolphins swam in front of us and dipped under our boat at the last second whether our prop would hit them.  We've waited for the sound or shudder of a prop strike, but it's never happened.  They're experts.  And a slow boat like ours is especially easy to dodge.  

However, they can't escape other things humans do.  

About 400,000 dolphins die every year by human hands.

400,000!

How is this possible?

Well, around 25% (100,000) of these annual deaths are from Japanese dolphin hunting.  They are hunted for food.  Dolphin is part of the Japanese diet.  But it’s how they capture and slaughter the dolphins that makes me sick.  They force the dolphins into nets, capture them, stab each one in the back with a steel rod, remove it, then stick a wooden plug in its place.  This gets the dolphins to bleed internally.  They drown in their own blood.

It's hard to watch how this is done.  

https://youtu.be/iSxOSexVX4I

The best thing we can do for dolphins is to expose this cruelty to more people.  Maybe that will lead to laws preventing it.                 

The other 75% of annual dolphin deaths by humans is mostly accidental.  Dolphins get caught up in commercial fishing nets as “bycatch.”  (Bycatch means things that are not intentionally caught.)  Because the dolphins trapped in nets can’t get to the surface to breathe, they drown.  That’s 300,000 more that die each year!

Why are these dolphins mutilated?  Most times it’s what they do to themselves.  As they struggle to get free, they are cut open by the nets that trap them.  Other times fishermen do this  to their bycatch, to get rid of them faster and even to hide the fact that they caught so many.  

Here’s an article worth reading about the accidental catching of dolphins off the French coast. 

https://www.thedodo.com/in-the-wild/dolphins-caught-fishing-nets-france

Given commercial fishing can’t be stopped (millions of people depend on the food it brings), can anything be done about the accidental deaths of dolphins?  Yes.  Different design nets and restrictions on fishing areas.  But it’s a really difficult battle.  Fishing is a global industry.  And each country has its own laws.  So even if one country decides to ban some ways of fishing in order to save dolphins, the countries “next door” or across the ocean might not.  

So it’s an uphill battle to get this things widely put into practice.  Here in the US, there’s a group called the WDC, which stands for Whale and Dolphin Conservation.  Most of their work is directed toward lobbying for changes to certain fishing practices.  You can read about that here.   

https://us.whales.org/our-4-goals/prevent-bycatch/

What can you and I do about this?  Other than give money to dolphin causes, the best things we can do are raise awareness, like I’m doing here, and support laws that change fishing practices.  Reducing our consumption of fish is much less likely to save more dolphins because not enough people will do that to make a difference.  So let’s learn to fish friendlier!

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Despite all the cruel hunting and fishing accidents I think it’s nice to say dolphins have lots of human friends.  

So let’s end this post on a happier note.  Check out the three videos of dolphin rescues and training.  

They might even bring you a dolphin smile. :)

Here are people coming together to save 30 stranded dolphins on a beach.

https://youtu.be/2BiMEeirC_M

Here's a dolphin training show.

https://youtu.be/m3tZxo8ljL4

Here's a successful dolphin rescue.  Yes, it’s only one saved.  But it’s a less common variety and every one saved helps.  

https://youtu.be/ULjNBdABUk8

Let’s end on an even more positive note.  We’ve heard stories about how dolphins have saved people from drowning.  Well, here’s a great story of how a pod of dolphins saved four swimmers from a shark attack.   https://www.theguardian.com/science/2004/nov/24/internationalnews 

And here’s another, about how a distance swimmer was also saved from a shark by dolphins.  

https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-04-28/watch-pod-dolphins-protect-new-zealand-swimmer-great-white-shark

I hope you found this post as interesting as I did researching it.