Wednesday, 30th March 2011 - Lots of leaping

The sun was shining, the water was glistening and the dolphins were leaping - Wednesday was the perfect day to cruise the Mandurah Estuary!

Just as the Super Cat was cruising through Mandjar Bay our sister ship, the Dancing Dolphin, radioed through that a pod of six dolphins had been playing with their boat, and they were heading straight towards us! True to form, within a few minutes the dolphins had well and truly arrived!

The fins of six large adult dolphins sliced through the water and straight to the port-side of our boat. At first they were an extremely placid pod and floated on the surface very close to the boat - much to the delight of our camera-snapping passengers! They floated around for over ten minutes; some on the surface, some just below it and one crazy bottlenose decided to spend the entire time upside down, proudly showing his gorgeous white belly.

The dolphins looked so relaxed that it almost sent the passengers to sleep as well - so our skipper Jonno decided he needed to liven the mood a bit. The Mandurah dolphins are renowned as being a playful bunch and there is nothing that they love more than surfing the waves our boat creates - and they are pretty talented acrobats (or would they be aquabats?). The throttle went down and within seconds the fun had begun...

If you cannot already tell from the expression on this dolphins face - he was having a whale of a time!!! He was only two meters from the boat and was trying his hardest to splash every single person on board... and he was a good aim! He surfed and leapt around with us for another ten minutes before they decided it was time to go.

The passengers and crew watched on until their dorsal fins faded onto the horizon.

Hopefully they will come play again tomorrow!