After a morning with a few Seabirds & the first Risso's Dolphins of the cruise. however, we were all hoping for some more Cetacean action, as the Pantropical Spotted Dolphins & our first Spinner Dolphins in the morning had all been distant. Finally, in mid afternoon our persistence was rewarded with a large pod of at least four hundred Spinner Dolphins. Some came close to the Plancius & the Expedition staff & ship's crew agreed to stop the Plancius. For the next hour, we had good numbers of Spinner Dolphins around the Plancius. Eventually, we had to get underway again, but some of the passengers had already headed down to the Observation lounge to wait for happy hour. As far as I was concerned happy hour finished as we started getting underway again.
Spinner Dolphin: Soon after we picked up the Spinner Dolphins & were discussing their identification, we started to see individuals jumping out of the water
Spinner Dolphin: They were clearly Spinner Dolphins when they behaved like this
Spinner Dolphin: Another impressive leap
Spinner Dolphin: Just a small part of the four hundred plus Spinner Dolphins in this pod
Spinner Dolphin: They very rapidly starting getting high scores for their performances
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin: This Spinner Dolphin put any act from one of those nauseous Simon Cowell talent programs to shame
Spinner Dolphin: It was difficult to know where to look with so many Spinner Dolphins around
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin: The acrobatics, slim appearance, long beaks, dark line from the beak & through the eye, pale underparts & pale pink bellies made this species easy to identify. The Eastern Pacific population are a more uniform pale grey colouration
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin
Spinner Dolphin
It had been another good day on the Atlantic Odyssey & I was pleased to have seen such good views of these Spinner Dolphins. I saw them a couple on the ferry between the two islands of Western Samoa in 2002, but they were feeding & not showing off like these individuals.
