Had a wonderful and unusual Dolphin encounter at Hatteras.

I intersected a pod of Dolphins at Nags Head who were working the fish in the area. When I got to the area where they were located, all their fins disappeared and I figured I scared them away. But after a couple of minutes I looked down and saw they were following underneath me.

After a minute or two they suddenly started breaching the water on either side of my board and crowding me in. They were brushing the board on both sides and diving down under. If I wanted to I would have been able to reach down and touch them as they came up. However, I was afraid I might fall in and scare them away. And I was just enjoying watching them.

Someone may argue the point. But I felt it was not a playful act. It was pure curiosity. I feel this because they would come up and look around before they dove back under. Perhaps they saw I was riding a new Starboard Carve and wanted to check it out, topside.

I hope everyone gets the chance to have this kind of encounter at some point. It was really cool to interact with Dolphins in the wild.

Oh, by the way I goes without saying, it was much better to have a Dolphin encounter than a shark encounter.

Patrick