We had the opportunity to take a boat tour around Assateague and out to look for dolphins. I’ve been on dolphin boat tours before and seen one or two in the distance, but this trip was much different .

We headed towards the Assateague shoreline first and there were about 15 horses (and a baby) roaming the beach and dunes. Then, we headed further out towards the ocean, making a turn around the inlet and pier and then running parallel to the OC tourist beaches.

We saw some really neat pelicans and hot air balloons as we ventured out for about the first 10 minutes, which I guess wasn’t as exiting to Jacob as I found it lol (because he actually fell asleep (warm sun + boat breeze + a couple days of vacation fun before = nap time ).

All of the sudden, I heard mom say “dolphins!!!! There are dolphins right in front of the boat!” It literally looked like we might run them over, although I’m sure they are smart enough to swim under or around.l the boat.

We then got to joy of watching a family of dolphins (I’m assuming as it looked like maybe a mom, dad and baby). They swam back and forth keeping pace with the boat (although the captain had slowed), even jumped up and dove a couple times, although I wasn’t fast enough to catch that.

The boat was very bumpy cruising along the ocean waves, so it was very challenging to stay steady enough and it was mid day with some pretty intense bright sunlight. As I took photos, It was hard to tell if I was even catching anything as the dolphins were pretty quickly darting back and forth and I was worried even if I did, the photos would be blurry of not exposed well.

However, much to my surprise, I somehow captured all these (and quite a few more, but I tried to par it down quite a bit to the best shots). The dolphins swam around us for a good 10 minutes and I decided it was too exciting of a moment for Jacob to miss, so I woke him from his slumber lol.

It was one of the highlights of our vacation week and an experience I am looking forward to repeating, although I know it was probably an exception to see that many dolphins for an extended period of time.

One of my favorite stories from that boat trip was how my love of photography created connections that may not have occurred otherwise. As happens to me often when I have my camera, a couple sitting near us started a conversation to ask about what I enjoy photographing and they got just as excited to tell me as they saw things that could be worth a photo. As the dolphins swam around us, most of the people on the boat joined in to help me spot the dolphins and this couple even helped steady me a couple times as we coasted over some larger waves.