Last week, I went dolphin watching in Yilan County. When our boat left Wushi Harbor, I was a little worried we might not see anything at all. About thirty minutes out, near Guishan Island (also historically called Turtle Island for its shape), the captain at the top of the boat spotted movement in the water.
My class saw various large pods of spinner dolphins! I tried to count them all, but lost track. They were smaller than I had imagined, slender and gray with long, narrow beaks. True to their name, they leapt out of the water and rotated several times in the air before landing. Sometimes two or three jumped at once, and the whole boat reacted every time. Spinner dolphins are the most common species in these waters, and they were the only species we saw throughout this trip.
Our guide explained that the Kuroshio Current carries warm water and plenty of fish and squid past this coast, which is why the dolphins are seen here so often.
While we did not see any whales, I did not feel like I had missed out on anything. After all, whales are an extremely rare sight. The teaching assistant for the class said that she goes on these trips frequently, and has only seen a whale once!
