Sailing with a Porpoise

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The boys and I had an awesome day sailing in Howe Sound.

The overcast sky occasionally spit out of a few drops, but we managed to avoid the real rain until we got back to the dock around 4pm, pure luck that one.

The wind was a steady inflow with some lovely gusts that put Madsu’s rail down a few times – I kept debating whether to reef the main as I’d already gone to a smaller jib, but the puffs didn’t materialize into anything. We kept a steady 5 knots to windward with maybe 3 other sailboats in sight the entire afternoon.

On the way back, while beam reaching, two Dall’s porpoises surfaced twice off the port beam while we were on starboard tack. They were tracking straight towards the beam, and I’m pretty sure they went straight under the boat. They’re always a thrill to see and I headed up hoping they’d come and ride the bow wave, but they went on their way and we didn’t see them again.

Just as we tied Madsu up in her slip at Sewell’s, the rain started, and we managed to pack up and head home before getting too wet (for once).

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2 thoughts on “Sailing with a Porpoise”

  1. We literally stumbled into a school of well over 100 poroises on our way back from Gambeir heading towards Horseshoe Bay last night. We have it on film. they played with us & our boat for atleast an hour. We finally had to leave because it was getting dark. They jumped beside our boat, swam along with us, splashed us with their tails, crissed crossed in front of us. They were certainly wanting to interact with us. we had our hands in the water, they swam right up to us! It was the most amazing thing that I have ever seen! Thought you might be interested?

  2. I saw them too!

    Could you send me a copy of your film documentation?

    Thanks.

    HF

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