Surfing Waves

Okay, so I'm sitting by myself at my local break, and the waves are shithouse, onshore, mushy, cold, bla bla bla. I am thinking to myself, damnit why the hell am I so unlucky, all the waves seem to break either just in front of me, or Im too far out to catch them...anyway, I'm kind of fuming because im not really getting any good rides when suddenly, I hear something surface to my right. Since I am by myself I instantly think its a shark as the weather was sharky weather , very overcast, rainy and it was dusk. I look and theres the dorsal fin..
SHIIIIIT I say to myself, if this was a shark its big...and im stuffed because Im alone...
suddenly, I realise its a dolphin as it spouts its blowhole...Im relieved but still freaked..I decide to try and paddle away because, I dunno, im still a little freaked out, lol even though I knew it was a dolphin I had this notion that it would bite me. As I turn to paddle away I notice there are about 10 surrounding me, literally swimming around me, as if they were inspecting me...a couple swam under me. At this point Im overwhelemed...I just didnt know what to do. some surfers about 100m down spot me and paddle towards me, and the dolphins left...

Lol, this happened like an hour ago and the adrenaline is still pumping....anyone had a similar experience?

Cool , last time I heard about dolphins doing that was when they were protecting somebody from a shark - maybe you were luckier than you think !

I've swam with dolphins in the wild 3 times now, amazonian river dolphins in Bolivia, bottlenose dolphins in northern NZ and dusky dolphins in southern NZ. Never had them come up to me whilst surfing though, your soooooo lucky. I would be amped for months afterwards. I study marine bio and hopefully one day i'll be able to research them properly. I've got a job as a research assistant on a marine mammal monitering boat for a week this summer so hopefully lots more sightings then. Dont worry about them biting you, if they approached you they are just being curious and wont feel threatened but I know what you mean, it is kinda intimidating being in the water with something as big (depending on the species) and powerful as dolphins....

The only time I could have swum with dolphins was in Byron Bay......I didnt get out of bed cos it looked a bit cold......and when my mates came back they told me about the most amazing experience of seeing a dolphin mummy with her baby

My dream would be to be reincarnated as a dolphin

dived with a dolphin off chesal beach in dorset a few years back was amazing keeped trying to play with my fins

Nice story. I would be shaken up by it a little too. You must have xxxxx yourself when you saw a fin. They would be interesting to research on. Ive only seen dolphins in dinsney world doing tricks lol I would love to swim with them though

Seen them a couple of times on a local beach down in west cork( no names although not very secret) once there was just the one and the other time there was a couple just popped up around ten mters from but as for looking like a shark there fins are totally different.

I never really said they do look alike, but because of the conditions I didnt think in my head....hey, its a dolphin dorsal fin, but rather ahhhh dorsal fin, must be a shark!!! I mean it would suck to think its a dophin when it is in fact a shark





hard-ish to tell the difference.

Ye and when your in the water and see that from a distance you haven't really got time to study it. You just think , fin--->shark---->SCREAM

there are a lot of dolphins where I surf in san diego. they usually come out in the early morning but sometimes at sunset too. they try to catch waves even. ive gotten dropped in on a couple times by them. it actually makes me really happy to see them around. they do get pretty close. sometimes i try and knock on my board to attract them over to me. sometimes it works.

Cool, must be awsome being around dolphins in the water. Ive seen some pics online of dolphins catching waves:

i see dolphins most of the time where i surf, probably 8 out of 10 times, there 's a river/creek mouth at the pt, so lots of fish out there, there's also a sea lion that likes to play from time to time

Laguna wrote:Cool, must be awsome being around dolphins in the water. Ive seen some pics online of dolphins catching waves:

what in the hell?! can that be real?

Yeah, that can be real, question is - What do you do? Duck dive or just let the wave blast you and hope they go under you??


Once in about 15 yrs ago a bunch of us were out on sponges and I had just got out, turned around and a flock of about 10,000 birds go flying by just outside of the break. Then just behind them I saw a few dorsal fins and started yelling at my buddies to get their asses in, but just as I start a couple dolphins breach the water and they were hot on the tails of the birds. Scary at first, wierd afterwards. Guess they were chasing a school of fish.

it used to scare me when the would get in the face like that but im pretty sure they know not to hit you. one morning i remember paddling out to a wave and seeing like 3 of them coming at me and i just couldnt pass up the wave so i turned around and went. a guy said that they jumped out of the face pretty close to me.

Last year I paddled out at Copacabana (Central Coast NSW) and when I was about 50m offshore on my own heard a loud splash behind me...I spun round and saw a large round ripple in the water next to my board.
I lay down so I could keep my legs and arms out of the water in case they got bitten off and suddenly heard a loud snorting noise and this time when I looked around I had 6 dolphins next to me close enough to touch!
They swam around for about 15 mins going out into oncoming waves and then surfing back inside them past me, very cool experience but I must admit I was sh**ting myself when I first saw that ripple!!!

no dolphins here but lots of seals, they always seem to be catching waves out on dodgy unsurfable reefs when i see them, must have a lot of bottle. Ive heard they to have a tendency to bite if you get to close tho so ive always given them a wide berth.
theres also a bunch of seagulls at my local break who have surfing dialled, just cruising along in front of the pocket riding on the updraft of air as the wave moves along.

Scariest was feeling my fibia and tibia breaking. Still in plaster and still sends shudders down my spine. Best by far is surfing my secret point break somewhere in the tropics. 500m of sand bottomed pure joy....just me and a buddy.

Hi guys,

I've only been surfing since Feb this year, but before I kitesurfed for about 3 years. I remember tacking out and turning on a small wave to come back in and seeing a black Lab poking his head out, it was massive and turned out to be a seal. My mate was behind me, he then had it ride the wave in with him. We were both stoked and that was a seal, so if it was a dolphin it would have been an amazing site.
Even though we live in Wales it is constantly at the back of my mind "There could be a shark out here". Totally stupid, but that is one of my biggest fears! Whe we ahd the really hot summer a few years ago a certain type of jelly fish came up with the gulf stream, can't remember what it was called. Its main predator was the loggerhead turtle, and the turtles main predator was the blue shark!!!!

There were a pod of dolphins filmed at one of my local breaks, go to:


http://www.westcoastsurf.co.uk/surfreport.htm#

look for

- daily media player video surf report

onthe top left corners and you are looking for

15/04/2006 (dolphins)