Two Pacific white sided dolphins sited off Jones Island

April 18, 2007 - Today was once again one of those rare special days. We were on our way back home on a very calm beautiful day, when we found two Pacific white sided dolphins traveling northwest off of Jones Island. They are a fairly rare sight here. Last time I saw one here was in 2000.

These two dolphins came alongside the boat and stayed with us for 30 minutes whether I was drifting in neutral or in gear moving forward. What I found really interesting was they would always surface on the side of the boat where we were all standing looking over at them. They seemed be as fascinated with us as we were with them. One of the guests on board took the photo above of one.

These dolphins are sleek and fast, larger than a Dall's porpoise, with a grey body and light colored horizontal streaks along their sides. I once had over 50 of them in San Juan Channel!

We've also been seeing J pod this last week. All of J pod survived the winter. I was one of two boats yesterday with them on the west side of San Juan. K and L pod are most likely still out at sea. They'll be in our area late May early June.