We were in Bonaire Jan. 28 to Feb.7 and stayed at the Sand Dollar. We had a great time. One day when we were on the way back from a boat dive, there was a pod of dolphins that surfaced several times. The dive captain followed along. We were lucky enough to see them again in the afternoon. Thank you to Luis, the boat captain from Sand Dollar! Earlier in the week there was a whale shark that went through. We didn't get a good look at it, but saw the water disturbance where he had surfaced. It was nice that the boat captains from different dive shops let the other boats know when they see things like this.

Does anyone know what kind of dolphins they were? All I saw was a dark solid color, probably black.
Thank you for any dolphin info.

We saw some that appeared quite dark also, near oil slick leap....it was years ago.

JG

Depends on the size of the dolphin as well. One of the common ones we have are Spinner dolphins. They grow up to about 7 feet long. The one pod I saw appeared quite dark especially with the afternoon lighting. They seemed a darker grey than the bottlenosed to me. As well as being much smaller.

Thanks Linda and Jim,
I suppose they were Spinner dolphins. It is hard to tell length in the water, but we did see them near another boat at one point and I don't think they were larger than 7'. Has anyone seen Dolphins lately, or the whale shark? We saw the dolphins on Feb. 3rd. We had a really nice sighting and took some pictures of an octopus on Rock Pile while we were there also.
Any reply appreciated. My mind is still on Bonaire and it's hard to get motivated to get back to work here. Although I am enjoying the 4" of snow we got here in Illinois. Has it been raining there? It rained the first two days we were there, but it doesn't matter when you are under water.
Masha danki,
Jean

We saw spinner dolphins in Hawaii, and they really lived up to their names. The dolphins jump out of the water and twirl. But these were gray, not dark like the ones I saw near Oil Slick Leap.

JG

Jean: During our stay (earlier than yours) we also saw dolphin, while coming back from Klein toward Divi's dock on Jan 21. A pod of about twenty surfaced half way between those two points and played for a while in front of the boat when we took chase. Since we were on Divi's flat-top boat, we were all able to gather on the bow and watch as they swam, surfaced and dove in the bow waves as we sped behind them. They were in the 6 to 8 foot size range, dark pearl grey, and look very like the Atlantic bottlenose dolphins we see when fishing off North Carolina.
As for the whale shark, we (my wife, daughter, and I) sighted a whale shark twice while fishing with Chris Morkos on Wednesday, Jan. 26. First early in the morning, about 8:00, in open water between Klein and the oil terminal. It showed up near where a school of tuna were feeding. We sighted it about an hour later, approximately 100 yards off shore along the coast just south of the oil terminal. It made for an exciting day...I wish I had been diving instead of fishing!

On Mar 23 at Red Slave dive site we were visited by a solo dolphin. At first it almost seemed like he was playing with us because he would dive straight to the bottom stand on his nose and spin. While he was doing this two of the eight divers were also standing on their heads looking at him from 20-30 ft away. He would stay down only 45-60 sec then resurface. Apparently he was searching for food. It seemed like we played with him for 30 min . His color was light to med grey and 7 ft length. Our DM from IA said that this was the first dolphin he has seen in the wild, not counting sites where animals frequent because they are fed by humans. WE dove there 3 more times that week and never played with him again.

Masha Danke for the "bonairean moment"!