I had a great dolphin experience on Saturday.
I was windsurfing Ocean Grove and I noticed a long dark shape following me deep in the channel. So I gunned it to the nearest sandbar and jumped off, dropped the rig in the water and up pops a dolphin!! He was fully interested in my sail, and swam round it checking it out, he then came back and gave me a smiley wink!!
I jumped back on the board, got on the plane - and looked down at my feet and he was surfing my bow wave!! this 8ft dolphin was 12 inches away from my front foot as we were both hooning across the water, for almost a minute. He was staying within a foot of my windward rail and occasionally darted under my board. It was totally insane!!
Any one else had a cRaZy dolphin experience?
yeah, it's awesome.
it used to happen to me when sailing one designs in the bribie passage. the whole pod would join in.
never had it happen on a shortboard though.
makes me smile just thinking about it.
Yeh, but it involved 6 bottles of champagne, a carton of beer, snorkel and some baby oil.
Actually that sounds pretty cool - closest experience was surfing once up at double island point and the little buggers scared the crap out of us punching through the wave just at the critical point. They dropped in for about 20minutes.
It's an awesome experience hey.
I had three juveniles playing under my board (I was slogging) in mandurah once, they can't have been getting any bow wave from me but they seemed to enjoy it nonetheless. Same as you, close enough to touch the board occasionally, but definitely doing it for fun and not aggressive.
I enjoyed it more than they did though!
Anyone at Melville beech last Wednesday had a first class view of two dolphins herding a school of fish amongst 8-9 windsurfers standing in the water was amazing.
I think a pod has calved near Melville as I see them all the time, really scary when you think you are going to run them over heading toward them at speed.
I have only had them travel with me twice and can't wipe the grin afterward.
Had a very similar experience - two dolphins breaching on the front of my bow-wave - they were racing me for about 100m then decided to chase some fish with the rest of the pod... happened on just off Green Point in Brighton. Very excellent.
NasiGoreng,
I'm assuming you were sailing in the barwon river at the heads? We've had a lone dolphin here for about the last 5 weeks. "experts" reckon he/she's a bit of a loner but I just think its checking out the latest gear.
Been riding my bike along the river with my boy trying to spot it but no luck so far - so time to get out on the board!
Windsurfing with a dolphin happened to me once off Windang Island. I caught a wave and was surfing it back to the beach and the grey shape appeared next to me. It scared the hell out of me, then I saw its blowhole and knew I wasn't going to be eaten.
I tacked back out, caught another wave and it came in with me again. Tacked out again and it was gone. I decided to call it a day too as it was a grey and dark day and it felt a bit sharky. Its a day to remember 
