Hilton Head, SC
July 18, 2010
I usually get my thrills on whitewater, but this story about a dolphin
playing chicken while charging like a bull describes a pretty exciting flat
water adventure. My buddy Mike J and I paddled in the intercoastal
waterway at Hilton Head, SC around noon, near the high tide peak. I didn't take
my pelican box or dry bag, so I opted to leave the camera on land. My son
Jackson took the pics above from shore as we were heading out. I wanted to
zig zag in the reeds and see where we ended up, but Mike wanted to stick to the
shore line, so we did that instead. When we hit the largest channel near us, we
turned away from shore, paddling 90 degrees away from it, and saw four dolphins
feeding on crustaceans. We caught up to them and paddled right along side them
for about 45 minutes. For much of the time, they were just off my kayak, on my
right, never more than 20 yards away, often as close as about 20 feet. That was
a first for both of us and I thought it was pretty stinking awesome. It was
just really, really cool to hear nothing other than the sound of the dolphins
blowing air out each time they surfaced. Mike noticed that a couple of the
dolphins had swam into a little pocket along the right bank and pointed out
where they were. They were pretty active while in that little cove, not sure if
they were eating fish or what. Mike and I had stayed pretty quiet, just
chilling with the dolphins, but at that point he said "we probably don't want to
get to close to them while they are in there or they might feel trapped." I
didn't disagree, but at the same time, when the breeze and current drifted my
boat closer and closer to the cove, I didn't paddle away from it, because A. as
a whitewater paddler, I'm prone to doing dumb things just to see how they turn
out B. I was kind of curious how close I would get to them and C. because in
my almost 30 year friendship with Mike, there are a just a lot of really good
stories that started out with me doing something stupid. So there I am, sitting
in an unskirted 14' Necky Manitou, with my boat parallel to the bank and pretty
much blocking the dolphins' exit from the pocket that they are in. Everything
is just super chill, quiet, serene. soft ocean breeze blowing. I'm feeling all
one with nature. Then, do you know what it looks like when a ski boat digs in
really hard to pull someone up on a slalom ski? Okay, picture a dolphin doing
that, from about 20 feet away, going from 0 to 60 like a speed boat, heading
directly, perfectly straight at the cockpit of my kayak. That dolphin just kept
rising higher and higher out of the water, going straight at me, not turning,
making this huge wake, I'm sure my brain was trying to process what in the hell
was about to happen, but not really getting past "Oh *@&^". Mike said that it
didn't dive until it was about 12 inches from the Necky.
Dude, you want to talk about a heart rate jumping from next to nothing to right
off the charts. Mike said that it dove under my boat, resurfaced on the other
side and buzzed his kayak. Mike also asked if I needed to hose out my kayak.
Pretty sure the dolphin was just politely telling me to back the *&#^ off. If
so, he got his point across. They didn't go back to feeding for another 5
minutes or so, but once they did, everything went back to super chill and they
let us tag along (keeping our distance) for about another 15 minutes until it
was time to head back.
Pretty sweet micro-adventure on flat water. I rolled the Necky back at the
dock, just to see if I could, and so that I would smell like a frog on the ride
back to the house. So I didn't get to paddle a cold mountain stream this
weekend, but that moment where the dolphin charged like a bull while playing
chicken, will stick with me for a long, long time. Mike said that it ranks
second only to the time I looked at him and said "So, do you want to jump
that?" before going all Dukes of Hazard in my 76 Silverado 454. That one
didn't turn out quite as good for me as the dolphin story though and was a lot
more expensive, so I think I might rank yesterday at the top.