… and some of them bite
The lifeguards were finishing up for the day in Ocean City. In fact, the beach patrol had packed up the stand for this beach at the south end before the start of the holiday weekend, which meant the nearest lifeguard was blocks away.
Still, there were plenty of people around on this early Sunday evening, and at this moment, most of them were on their feet, staring at the break, many pointing or gesturing, some inching into the water.
Was it a rescue, or someone who needed rescue? The waves weren’t very rough, but could someone have gotten in trouble out there? Wait a minute, the people on the beach were smiling.
Dolphin.
At least three of the marine mammals were hunting in the shallow water close in to shore, about chest deep on the average grownup. They would thrash in the waves, and once in a while one would come up in a roll, showing its underside, or two would come up at once.
They stayed in close for some time, giving most on the beach a good, long look. A couple of guys tried to wade out a little closer, and then closer still.
Sometimes when you see dolphin they’re traveling, or at times you get to see them playing. These were clearly working. There was something to eat, maybe some fish getting concentrated by the rip, and they were making the most of it.
In other words, they’re busy. Leave them alone.
Lately, there have been some nice waves rolling in. The forecast for Friday looks epic, if somewhat fearsome, and the weekend looks to be a blast. But for much of this summer, there has been a lot of time sitting on the board, just waiting.
Picture it: The top half of the sun peeking over the waves, somebody walking their dog on the beach, and you floating in the water, sitting still, with your feet invisible in the murk below.
It’s lovely, but it also gets you thinking.
Then come the splashes. Maybe there was a big one behind you, or just past the corner of your eye. You have no idea what it was, but it’s nearby, and it sounded pretty big.
The ocean is the largest wilderness on earth. You’re floating at the edge of it, and it’s pretty benign, but there are a lot of animals out there in the wide and wild water. Crabs and jellyfish, we’re all used to. They can hurt, but aside from the very rare Portuguese man-of-war displaced by a hurricane, few are likely to do serious damage.
But what else shares your wave?
One woman with her daughter on that Ocean City beach was afraid those big splashes might have been sharks. I assured her they weren’t, and that the sharks you’re most likely to see in that close would be under three feet and scared of people.
Last summer there were a great many sharks around, mostly little dogfish splashing near the board, sometimes doing that wonderful “Jaws” move, where you see the tailfin weaving along the surface of the water before disappearing as it nears you.
The thing is, most of the time the waters in Jersey are so clouded with silt you can’t see more than a foot deep. Some days are crystal clear, however, which gives you a better, and more unnerving, idea of how many animals swim past you. For instance, there are almost always skates and stingrays in the waves, but who even thinks about them until you see a fever of stingrays (yes, that’s really what it’s called) swimming under the board in a “V,” looking like a squadron of bombers heading to the Blitz. Maybe you don’t rush right in after that, but I bet you keep your toes on the board for a while.
Maybe all of this sounds more dire than it should. I wouldn’t want to underplay the wonder, or the intense beauty of seeing an osprey catch a fish or a tern’s dive, or the way pelicans and black skimmers glide along the waves, surfing the air along the gully between two rollers with such grace they seem to move by magic instead of basic physics.
Even when there are no waves, just seeing something you didn’t expect can make you glad you got up and paddled out.
This summer after Irene plowed by, I saw a sea turtle poke its head up and give me a long look before dropping back under the waves. I could hardly believe my own eyes, but I can’t imagine anything else it could have been. On another day, pretty early, the waves were crowded with minnows, which would spray out from the wave before the break in a shower of silver droplets. Yes, something was probably chasing them from underneath, but that didn’t spoil it for me.
But it’s the dolphin that really knock you out. Most of them are pretty used to seeing surfers at this point, but occasionally one or two will break off from the pod and check you out, just to see what you’re up to. Maybe there are young with the group, which understandably makes them more careful.
I had one friend who had a dolphin clear its blowhole at him, for which he has since had trouble forgiving the species, but most folks seem to regard dolphin with unreserved love and joy, and with a sizable helping of awe.
They also surf.
It doesn’t happen that often, usually on a big, clean day, the bottlenose dolphin will ride the waves, sometimes in a group, and kick out and become airborne just before the closeout. They aren’t hunting or looking for mates or defending territory. They are just playing. Like you, they’re in the waves only because it’s fun.
“I’ve seen them surf, just riding the waves just like the surfers do,” said Bob Schoelkopf, the director of the Marine Mammal Stranding Center in Brigantine. “They’re highly intelligent animals. They like a bit of fun.”
Schoelkopf has spend decades rescuing dolphin, seals and other marine mammals, as well as turtles and other sea animals. He is clearly dedicated to marine mammals and to the ocean, but between you and me he can be kind of a downer.
In an interview this week about what is living in the break, he explained how many of these wonderful animals can hurt you, and just how badly.
Those beautiful dolphin? Don’t go near them. It’s a federal crime, but besides, they are big, wild animals who have never seen Flipper.
“Dolphins are not always a friendly, kind animal. They can kill you. The best thing to do is just stay away,” he said.
He spoke of sharks, not little dogfish but bull sharks, tiger sharks and even a baby great white, all found in Jersey waters. He spoke of a seal attacked by a sand tiger and a dolphin killed by a shark off Cape May, and of how those great white will likely become more common as the seal population increases in the state. Great white sharks love seals, and in case you weren’t worried yet, a surfer on a board looks a lot like a seal silhouette from below, which is where the shark would be if hunting.
Then there are the adorable, fuzzy, curious and cuddly seals themselves. Big doe eyes, cute little flippers, don’t you just want to squeeze them?
They bite. Hard, Schoelkopf assured me. They can tear up a dog’s face, or the hand of a surfer foolish enough to try to pet one when it comes up next to his board in the winter.
And he said turtles can break your arm.
I suspect he is trying to disabuse people of some of their cutesy animal notions, and no doubt he has seen lots of people who tried to pet seals, ride dolphin or act on other bad ideas.
Also, people do get bit by sharks all the time around here. Usually, they’re little bites from little sharks, but there was a boy killed at Sea Bright. That was back in 1926, and there was a real bad run back in 1916, when either a great white or a bull shark killed four people and injured one. Other than those, there are no records of serious shark attacks in Jersey.
Most of the bad shark attacks take place in Hawaii, Florida and California, but they do happen. Then there is the rather disquieting sight of a school of bluefish churning the water, heading your way. Get out for that one. Quickly.
Most of the time, that big splash is a bottlenose dolphin, the kind that hunts close to shore and is in the area in the summer. Schoelkopf said once in a while someone may see a porpoise or a deep-sea species like a common dolphin or the huge Risso’s dolphin, but that for the most part, if one of those is in close to shore, it is probably in trouble.
In 20 years in the area, I have twice seen whales from the beach, once when one was hanging around close to shore for a summer, getting its picture taken a lot, and another time when it was all but unnoticed from the beach, a schoolbus-sized animal swimming by the bathers without fanfare.
Who knows what else is swimming under our boards?
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