Boaters usually keep their eyes on the sky to watch for incoming weather, but apparently there are other hazards up there besides clouds and rain.
A trio of fishermen in New Zealand recently had their trip go haywire when an 11-foot (3.35 m), 900 lb (408 kg) bottlenose dolphin crash-landed onto the stern of their boat.
This seems to be a regular occurrence in New Zealand, as the exact same thing has happened with a mako shark in 2022.
No one ever expects a shark or dolphin to drop out of the sky.
According to the boat's owner, Dean Harrison, he and his friends were enjoying a great day on the water when a shadow suddenly appeared overhead. In an instant, a dolphin smashed onto the deck of their tiny 15-foot fishing boat -- an 11-foot dolphin on a 15-foot boat. The trio were out searching for king fish, also known as yellowtail amberjack, in a small cove.
King fish are delicious to eat if you can get to them before the dolphins do. Or, before the dolphins get to you.
Harrison and two buddies were fishing near the Hole in the Rock, a picturesque spot off the north coast of New Zealand’s North Island, and had spotted dolphins swimming nearby. Next thing they new, they had a crew of four.
“In the blink of an eye, there's this thrashing dolphin in the middle of the boat and gear and people flying everywhere. It was chaos,” Harrison told Stuff News.
“One minute everything was fine and then just like lightning striking, there’s a big dolphin in our boat thrashing around and breaking everything.”
The dolphin's understandable flailing broke “every single fishing rod we had in the boat," according to Harrison, and severely damaged the bow.
One of Harrison's friends received minor injuries to his arm when the juvenile male dolphin grazed his back and shoulder. But craziest of all, due to the animal's sheer size and weight inside the tiny boat, the crew was unable to get it off the boat and back into the water.
"We looked at the dolphin still alive and breathing and we thought, 'we’ve got to start looking after him and figure out what to do,'” said Harrison. “Because he’s stuck in the boat for now, so he’s coming along for the ride.”
In a wise move, the men quickly contacted New Zealand's conservation authority who directed them to a boat ramp roughly an hour away. The conservation authority would have a crew waiting to help treat the dolphin.
During the ride the group used an onboard hose to keep the dolphin wet under the strong New Zealand sun. A wet t-shirt over his body also helped prevent damage from the sun.
Once Harrison and his pals reached the shore, members of a local Māori tribe prayed for the dolphin's rescue. Conservation workers, along with Harrison's crew and locals, used a tractor to life the dolphin off the boat and back into the water.
After all the chaos had ended, the group gave the 2 to 3-year-old dolphin a name, Tohu, which means “sign” in the Māori language.
Harrison also decided to change the name of his boat to Tohu as well.
“The dolphin got to swim away, and we got to walk away — and we all have a story to tell,” Harrison said. “It’s a good ending to a situation that could’ve been much worse.”
You can watch a great interview with Harrison and his crew in the video below:
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