One of the fun things about exploring the ocean in Newport Beach is that we never know what we’re going to see each day! Off the coast of Newport Beach California we have thriving marine life, over the last few weeks we’ve been encountering thousands of dolphins, minke whales, fin whales and even mako sharks!

This particularly playful pod of bottlenose dolphins made jumping 20ft in the air look effortless, leaping high into the sky, multiple times as excited passengers watched in awe! By the time our crew member Christine, who captured the video, pulled out her phone to record the behavior, this happy bottlenose dolphin had already leaped just as high at least 4-5 times before she hit record! Behavior like this takes a lot of energy for dolphins to do, so it’s not often you see these high flying behaviors up close and personal while we’re whale watching. Passengers onboard were amazed that an animal could jump so high, so many times and make it look so effortless.

Why did it do that?
Great question! Although we don’t know exactly why they decide to jump so high, playful behavior like this is something we can see while we’re on the water is more commonly seen from intelligent animals like dolphins. It could be for navigation, communication, hunting, or even just for fun! It’s likely these high flying bottlenose were well fed that day, gorging on the abundance of anchovy we’ve had off our coast recently. When the whales and dolphins off our coast are ‘fat & happy’ sometimes we’ll see energetically playful behaviors like this, which is why being on the water is so much fun – you never know what you’re going to see each day when whale watching!