Begging For Fish?

The Indian River
28 19.706N 080 42.337W

Yesterday we traversed the Mosquito Lagoon under the spinnaker. We think it was the fastest traverse of the lagoon we ever did. It was certainly one of the most pleasant. The winds were gentle, and the temperature superbly moderate. I spent part of the time lounging on the forward deck and part taking a sun shower. The splendid isolation made it easy to shower on deck out of sight of everybody.

Mosquito Lagoon is like a big inland lake about 3 miles wide by 15 miles long. On the east side it is bordered by a mile or so of barrier dunes that separate it from the sea. The remarkable thing about it is that the whole lagoon is only 2-4 feet deep. You could walk across it. The main exception is the dredged channel for the ICW which is 14 feet deep by 150 feet wide. I've read that there are a few depressions in the lagoon where the water is 6 or 8 feet deep in a circular pool 100 feet
or so in diameter. The fish prefer this deeper water so these pools are packed with dense schools of fish. Needless to say, those pools are favorite targets for the fishermen in their small boats.

The big surprise though came midway through the lagoon. I was standing at the helm glancing to starboard when suddenly a dolphin leaped 10 feet out of the water right in front of me and no more than 5 feet away from Tarwathie. I was stunned. If only I had a camera (except that I could never have pointed and clicked in time). The dolphin continued to swim beside us for a minute or so. He (or she?) was exceptionally big, perhaps 10-12 feet long.

In the next few minutes I thought it over. Why did the dolphin do that? He was much too close to Tarwathie to make it a coincidence. The leap was far higher than dolphin's normal leaps. The best explanation I could think of was that he was begging for fish. There are lots of fishermen in Mosquito Lagoon. Perhaps some of them throw bait fish to the dolphin in exchange for a show. Too bad; I didn't have any fish on board to throw to him. It's only speculation but I have no other explanation.

I believe that this is the first time we ever sailed the north end of the Indian River when the wind was not howling. The other 5 times we passed here we had very strong winds 20-30 knots. It's very nice today, relaxing, warm and pretty. If we wanted to hang out here for two more days we could see the space shuttle land, but we elected to move on. Tonight, we're going to meet my brother Ed and sister in law Sally for dinner at their how. Tomorrow we'll take a mooring at Vero. Friday, we'll
rent a car and return to Melbourne for the SSCA Gam (a convention for sailing cruisers like us.)