Dolphins ‘love’ to ride bow waves off ships, and can occasionally be seen cavorting in CRUDES and once in a great while Carrier bow waves, but this is the first time I’ve seen them ride a submarine’s bow wave (and the boat was doing at least 10 kts)… It’s toward the end of the clip past the 1 minute point.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zQd1WYtg794
Gives a whole new meaning to ‘outriders’ 🙂
Dolphins are the “people of the sea”.
True story: Onboard USS Wainwright in the Gulf of Mexico for an exercise in 1982, we would lean on the liferail outside our work space above the bridge and sip coffee in the early mornings. One morning dolphins were sporting all around the ship. Sam, a black sailor, began pointing to various dolphins and began determining their gender just by watching them jump. “That’s a boy dolphin,” he’d say. “That one is a girl dolphin.” Naturally we gave him the stinkeye and asked how he could determine a dolphin’s gender just by watching them jump. Sam claimed that male dolphins’ genitals created drag in the water, so that they couldn’t jump as far out of the water as the females could. Our LPO Greg, who had been sipping coffee, then pointed to a fin that barely emerged from the sea: “Look! A black dolphin! His c*ck must be this long!” This caused numerous spit-takes, and Sam from that point on was gifted with the nickname “Dolphin” back at NSGD Norfolk from that point on.
Crew get “dolphins” so why not the boat.
LL- That they are, and by and large they are GOOD people! 🙂
Robert- Too funny! 🙂
SoCal- Good point! 😀
I swear that the dolphins around San Diego looked forward to boomer visits. Boomers have a pretty good standing wave at the bow, 5-6 feet tall. One trip into SD there must have been 30 dolphins surfing our bow wave!
I’ve watched them many times. We used to have to toss the meal garbage over the fantail and that meant we had sharks follow us. But when the dolphins were around, no shark fins could be found and the Capt. would not let us toss the garbage over. I wondered why but decided it was he didn’t want the dolphins hurt, sick or poisoned. He said there are stories of them helping men in the water.
There are some sights that would almost, repeat almost, make it worthwhile to be a sailor.
Scott- I’ve heard that, but nobody ever seemed to get pictures…LOL
CP- Yep, I’ve heard that from others too!
WSF- Only “Almost”??? 🙂
CRUDES?
I can haz translation?
BGM- Cruiser/Destroyer
“Scott- I’ve heard that, but nobody ever seemed to get pictures…LOL”
Yeah, the CO complained when the Lookout had a camera on watch… 😛
*tips hat*
Thanks
Scott- Yep! 😉
BGM- You’re welcome
Soooo pretty! And as the daughter of a sub driver, thank you so much for sharing! I’ve passed it along to my dad; I know he’ll love it.
Pediem- You’re welcome!
I rode a 688 out of Norfolk in the 90s and I used to see them all the time.One of the things I miss.
Ken- My few rides, I was buried down in the equipment… sigh
Coming out of Charleston in 1974 on SSBN-600, I was the bridge 61JS talker. We were going fast enough that the bow wave was breaking at the leading edge of the sail, 10-15kts. I watched a pod of dolphins surfing our bow wave. It was fascinating to me, a hillbilly from KY. But what really impressed me was that individual dolphins would surf for a minute or so and then dive forward ahead of the boat. They would then swim down the opposite side, around the stern and come up again to surf the bow wave some more. In other words, they were running circles around us. Pretty impressive if you ask me.
Another interesting thing about dolphins is that as a sonarman, I got to listen to them as they cavorted around us. They sounded more than anything like a bunch of kids on a playground. I am convinced that they actually speak an intelligent language.