Dolphins before the storm

Traveling down the coast of Florida and the ICW spoiled us – we saw dolphins almost every single day. Since being in the Bahamas, we’ve seen zero! Until now. We have an amazing encounter with a small pod of dolphins as we are leaving Rock Sound Bay. The critters of Rock Sound seem to love us for better (dolphins) or worse (bugs).

Dancing with dolphins

Okay, we don’t really dance with the dolphins – although, technically Matt did this while in Riviera Maya, Mexico. We do move the boat around in intricate motions trying to get just close enough but not too close, and also not run ashore. Dolphins definitely seem to prefer when the motors are off, so as soon as we get close enough we at least switch into neutral as to not scare them away.

We take turns driving so the other can enjoy the beauty of the dolphins and try to capture some photos. I don’t understand why it is so darn hard to get a photo of a dolphin – maybe it’s just us. We try bringing out the GoPro but the water is a bit murky here and it doesn’t seem worth it for one us to jump into the water. Instead we just continue to enjoy them from above the surface. They swim around in the same general area for several minutes, which is amazing for us to enjoy! I even spot one of them do a full jump 100% out of the water. Of course that was not captured on video, of course. Here’s a snapshot of what we did capture!

Surrounded by storms

As we are watching the dolphins, the sky is pretty and the sun shines. Just a few minutes later, we see some storms forming off in the distance. Good  news – one of them is off to our right and moving further away. Bad news – we need to turn directly into the other one. Oh well, a little rain never hurt anyone. Lightning has though. Lightning is very bad for sailors. We are literally sitting in the middle of a huge body of water, with a large metal rod sticking up from the center of the boat – the tallest thing around.

We keep our calm and motor on. We continue to see more and more storm clouds forming in the distance – now in every direction. Above us looks pretty dark, but nothing is really happening. Off to the southwest we begin to spot a funnel cloud coming down. Then we see water coming up from the ocean surface. After several minutes, the two connect to form a complete waterspout! Absolutely amazing. We are quite mesmerized as this is our first time seeing a waterspout, and it’s a very safe distance away. Check out this quick video (although it doesn’t really do it justice).

Eventually the rain does start to pour down on us. Fortunately, we are only a couple miles from our destination at this point. Unfortunately, our “destination” was a general area where we were hoping to scuba dive – not necessarily an anchorage where we can wait out the storm. Boating is give and take.

We are having a little trouble seeing through the heavy rain, so we occasionally put out a short blast on our horn to let other boats know we’re here. Though not many other boats are silly enough to be out in this storm. We manage to spot a couple different mooring balls, two of which are a red-orange color. I’m pretty confident that these must be dive site moorings since the area we’re in is supposed to have numerous sites. Not knowing of any anchorages in the area, we decide to pick up one of the moorings and wait out the rain. This is not ideal, as you should really only use a dive mooring while you are actually diving. We do plan to dive as soon as the rain stops, though, and are pretty confident no one else will be coming to use it right away.

Check out our next post for some cool shots once we finally made it under water!