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How do you get rid of dolphins?


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Gentling sailing up to Kawau today got approached by 5-6 big ocean dolphins who started knocking the rudder quite aggressively. Tried starting the engine, going fast, going slow, nothing worked. Eventually dropped sails and drifted quietly but they still took ages to lose interest and go away.

 

At one point I was thinking about dropping noisy anchor chain, blasting foghorn at them or flushing lots of soapy water down the sink to try to deter them.

 

I know most people want to attract dolphins not deter them but the knocking on the rudder was quite disconcerting and they were big animals.

 

Any thoughts or experiences?

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I've never experinced that, and haven't ever thought about how to get them to go away. You tried everything I would have thought of.

 

But a random experience I had with dolphins, was out for a night training sail 2 up with my Father.

Short story is it was dark and late, I was a bit tired and drowsy. Was cutting the corner a bit on the northern end of Whangaparaoa Pen, heading into Tiri channel. I had basically lined up a reef / rock shelf in the dark and hadn't noticed. Some dolphins came up and gave me a bit of a surprise, surfaced right beside where I was sitting in the cockpit. Splashed me (or blew some water up). Anyway, they basically woke me up and told me I was a dick, there is a reef just ahead. I altered course a good 30 degrees and made it home without hitting anything.

 

I'm happy for you all to think I'm a dreamer or whatever, but I certainly felt those dolphins sent me a message. If they weren't sending me a message, it was a very lucky coincidence.

 

Perhaps your dolphins were trying to get you to turn around by pushing on the rudder? You didn't leave anything important in the car did you?

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Years ago some friends (a couple) were swimming off GB reef and a pod of dolphins started hassling the girl and forcing her back to the dive boat. Eventually she gave up and got out of the water whilst everyone else carried on swimming. A few mins later a shark turned up and everyone got out.

 

4 weeks later back in London she found out she was pregnant.

 

We think the dolphins detected this via sonar and went into ‘protect the expectant mother mode’.

 

I love them as much as anyone and have had dozens of memorable experiences over the years - but I’ve also found the big black ocean dolphins can be quite clumbsy on the rudder and if there are no other (faster) boats nearby as a bigger drawcard then I worry about damage to the sterngear.

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Gentling sailing up to Kawau today got approached by 5-6 big ocean dolphins who started knocking the rudder quite aggressively. Tried starting the engine, going fast, going slow, nothing worked. Eventually dropped sails and drifted quietly but they still took ages to lose interest and go away.

 

At one point I was thinking about dropping noisy anchor chain, blasting foghorn at them or flushing lots of soapy water down the sink to try to deter them.

 

I know most people want to attract dolphins not deter them but the knocking on the rudder was quite disconcerting and they were big animals.

 

Any thoughts or experiences?

Hah, hah, they were just telling you the rudder bearings a a bit sloppy! "Hey look, this moves sideways!"

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Diving for scallops at kawau a large pod came over and essentially harassed us for an hour, my son got some great underwater footage. They come so close but somehow they always avoid contact even when they are right in your face, amazing creatures.

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Motor sailing from Tutukaka to Whangarei we were joined by a pod of bottlenose dolphins, who followed us for about an hour.

We were loving it watching their jumps and turns.

That was, until one of them started banging on the rudder, and then I got worried, and hoped that they would leave us.

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