What a great weekend! I was invited to race in a offshore sailing race from Kaneohe bay to Waimea bay. The race down was great, we had good wind and fair seas all the way down. We dropped anchor and spent the night under the stars.
In the morning we had a great breakfast and then a school of 60 to 100 Spinner Dolphins (Stenella longirostris) swam into the bay to play, mate and feed. As we were finishing up our breakfast this school was just getting started on a meal of fresh fish. They cruised around the whole bay checking out swimmers, paddle boarders, and kids snorkeling.
The school headed out to sea about 30 minutes before the start of the race. It almost seamed like they wanted to be in the race but only if they got a head start. As the race started the spinners were gone. As we made our way up the coast, one of our guys yells "THEY'RE BACK!". As I looked around and made a slight adjustment on the jib sail, I could see the school racing along side our sail boat the PUANANI. The spinners would race forward to the bow to get pushed by the force of the water as the bow slices forward creating a pressure wave of water. The spinners love to surf the bow, they would jockey for a chance to do this, only two dolfins can "ride the bow" at the same time.
They raced with us for a while and then all of a sudden, they were stolen from us by KAIMILOA. I'm not sure exactly how it happened, I looked up to check the tell tails on the sail and the whole school was gone. The whole school was taken from us and was now racing and bow riding KAIMILOA.