tursiops truncatus
Gulf Islands National Seashore, Florida — Pensacola Bay
Sunday, April 26, 2026 — 9:13 am
We drove from Navarre Beach to Pensacola Beach on Sunday morning and boarded the catamaran operated by Jolly Dolphin cruises. The boat was built by the captain, and he was very proud of it. There was another crew member aboard (Matt) who was very knowledgeable about dolphins. We left from Little Sabine Bay, but soon passed through the inlet into Pensacola Bay. It was 10 miles from the port to the mouth of the bay and we made the trip at high speed (18 mph — I asked), stopping occasionally to look for dolphins. We were between Fort Pickens and the Naval Aviation Station when we saw our first two dolphins. They didn’t come very close to the boat.
When we were out in the mouth of the bay off the point of Santa Rosa Island, we saw a small pod. We followed them, and they followed us for about 15 minutes. The captain sped up several times, trying to get them to surf behind our boat. They did a little bit, but, probably because there was a baby with them, they never did it for long.
The patterns and wear on dolphin fins are unique enough that researchers use them to track individual dolphins.
We saw them, or some others, on the way back, just off Fort Pickens. The entire trip took about an hour and a half, and it was a beautiful day on the water.
I took some video. This is a screenshot of the baby jumping out of the water. They retain the white lines for about six months after birth.
Later that same day, I saw a pod surfacing far out in the gulf as we were sitting on the balcony of our hotel. I saw more the next morning, a larger pod, from the beach west of Navarre. And on Monday, I saw several close to shore in Santa Rosa Sound by Navarre Beach Marine Park, and later that afternoon more off Fort Morgan near the mouth of Mobile Bay.