on saturday morning the long island sound was dead calm, with no wind or waves. we cruised out of our marina and saw LOTS of boats justing drifting around, with several police boats and harbor patrol boats among them. sirens were flashing but not a sound was heard.

after cleaning my ears with the antenna of my handheld vhf to verify i was a) awake and b) not going deaf, we headed over and killed the engines to join the flotilla, not really sure what was going on.

i figure either there's a body in the water or boats are lining up for free beers. Or both. either way, i want in.

about 30 secounds later a group of 5 dolphins jump out of the water right next to us. then another group, and another, and another. i stopped counting at 150 dolphins and just enjoyed the spectacle. it took about half an hour for all of them to pass us.

after they were past, i started up the engines and raced around to where they were heading and shut down the engines to await another encounter with these majestic mammals (who, by the way, have somehow evolved to keep themselves free of attorneys and ex-wives, but i digress).

while waiting, i glanced down at the fish finder and it was lit up with tons fish. obviously, the dolphins were chasing schools of fish and i was tempted to drop a line in the water. better judgement took hold as i imagined myself wrestling flipper for a striped bass on the swim platform while harbor police got a fix on my mellon with laser targeted flare guns.

many of you may come into contact with dolphins routinely on your boat outings. i can assure you that it is a VERY rare occasion to see them in the long island sound, only a few mins from manhattan. in fact, i couldn't find a single person in the marina (including several old salts) who had EVER seen a dolphin here.

no pictures as i didn't have a camera with me other than a really bad one on a cell phone and didn't want to leave the helm.

we only stayed out for about an hour (got young kiddies, you know), but it was one of the best boat trips we've ever taken.

So where are the pictures to go with your fish tale???

no fish story and i never lie on porpoise. also no pics, but when i told my parents about it yesterday, they said they had read about it in the sunday paper.

+1, except the globe is warming up and this will be less un-common.

Neat story! Thanks!

I though this was going to be one of those story where everyone stopped and waited but no one knew why or who started it.

Must of been magical seeing all the dolphins in a pack.

Very cool Bruce

I know the first time we saw dolphins & cut the engine, it was magical – for us and the kids.

...And we expect them down here – I can only imagine the responses up north

They showed up as far east as Northport harbor and Smithtown Bay.
Tommy