“(Lagenorhynchus obliquidens) The Pacific white sided dolphin is very beautiful. They have a coloring that ranges from light to dark gray. The underside of them though is white. They also have dark black rings that cover both eyes. The beak is very small and often seems out of proportion with the rest of the body. One characteristic that you will notice is that the dorsal fin has a hook on the end of it. They aren’t very large though compared to other types of dolphins. Full grown they will be about 8 feet long. They will weight approximately 300 pounds.” Taken form the website Dolphins-World
The technical write up is interesting but cannot compare to the excitement of a pod of two or three hundred dolphins playing with our boat. They are on all sides of the boat playing in the bow wave as well as sticking their nose within a meter (yard) of the prop.
A killer whale / orca’s working speed is much faster than a humpback as it is looking for salmon. This orca had been circling the area of our boat as we sat and watched it feed. This time if surfaced under a “full head of steam” before it dove again nearer the boat to continue it’s search for food. Again as in January 17th post my guests did not complain.