Killer Dolphin

The water was pink with blood. Miguel?s Diving staff were out on a run testing a new boat when we saw the large Bottlenose dolphin (Torsiops truncatus) jump a couple meters out of the water, make a tight loop in the air, and plunge straight down, making hardly a splash. We watched as the dolphin repeated the dramatic leap twice more before we passed. Although the ocean surface was perfectly calm, the place where the dolphin had been leaping was bubbling from some unseen disturbance below. What was the dolphin so vigorously killing? Or was she calving? Our cetacean expert is unsure. Local fishermen, who have witnessed this behavior before at close range in their tiny canoes, say that the water is always pink and is caused by, well, dolphin diarrhea. Hmmm?.

This strange cetacean sighting took place in waters several hundred meters deep just off the Honeycomb dive site. Three days prior fishermen friends saw a school of Cuvier?s Beaked Whales (Ziphius cavirostris) about a half hour south of our Traffic Jam dive site. The whales were breaching the surface as they slowly swam. These numerous cetacean sightings indicate the beginning of an interesting season for those who venture to Gorontalo for diving.