Don’t be fooled by their pseudo-smiles. They’re just happy because they’re thinking about breaking your arm. Nah, we love dolphins. Photo: Clare Plueckhahn.
I don’t know about you, but when I see a pod of dolphins swim by while I’m in the water, my stoke-meter goes through the roof. Most people get to gawk at them from a distance at Sea World and the like but never get a chance to see them up close in their natural habitats. Being so close to such wildlife is one of the many perks of being a surfer.
However, these last couple weeks, it seems that the ocean has had enough of us and have united on a (Australian) front to kick our asses out of the water. Ten days ago today, you may remember a roughly 30-foot whale knocking a surfer out and sending him flying through the air at Bondi beach.
Well, it seems as though dolphins may have beat whales to the punch. Roughly four weeks ago, Troy Robinson was surfing at Margaret River when a pod of dolphins swam into the line-up. “I was surfing at Ellensbrook by myself,” Robinson said, “and there were heaps of dolphins around me, about thirty. It was amazing, they were so close,” he continued.
The situation changed quickly as some of the dolphins swam towards him on a wave. “Next minute, I ducked dived under and it was like a torpedo hit me,” Robinson recalls. He thinks one of the dolphins (roughly six feet long) attempted to jump up from underneath him. When he came up he discovered “[the dolphin] put a hole in my board and you can see where it scraped its nose along it.” The damage to the board was a huge bummer, as Robinson made it himself and, “It was a really good board.”
Not only that, but the impact broke his left arm leaving him with one good arm to paddle to shore. Luckily we as human beings (generally?) look out for each other and several folks on the beach came to help him out.
From there Robinson went to Bunbury Hospital and had surgery on his left arm to reconstruct the bone with a metal plate. He hasn’t been excited to surf since, and who can blame him? It’s the sharks and jellyfish that Aussies generally have to be wary of. And what does Robinson think is the catalyst to all of this?
“Maybe it’s mating season or something but they seem to be really hyped up.”
Nonetheless, he sees the bright side to the situation (we can all take a lesson here).
“It was lucky really, if it hit me in the head it could have knocked me out or killed me.”
So what kind of lesson do we take from all this? Don’t surf during dolphin mating season? Don’t surf alone? Never duck dive a dolphin stacked wave?
How about this: shit happens.
