Giant Super Pod of Sleeping Dolphins Wake Surf Ahead of Catamaran

“ Ok everyone, look ahead of the boat, we are approaching a pod of spinner dolphins. If you look close, you may see they have one eye closed”. Recently while vacationing on the island of Maui, Hawaii, Ryan and his wife Megan took an afternoon and went on a snorkelling excursion. En-route to their destination, they encountered a massive pod of spinner dolphins. Cruising along at a slow pace, the spinner dolphins began riding the front wake of the catamaran. They do this to also conserve energy as they rest, while the boat basically pushes them along. Of course everyone aboard found this very exciting, being able to see these little creature this close and very calm. In actuality, the spinner dolphins are a nocturnal animal, meaning they are generally resting or sleeping during the day time. Hunting in the deep waters at night off the Hawaiian Islands as these spinners were, they return to calm bays to usually rest and sleep during the day. Along with resting, these amazing animals can actually swim and locate food while ”asleep”. These animals undergo an unusual form of sleep called "unihemispheric slow-wave sleep." Also known as deep sleep, slow-wave sleep is a type of sleep thought to help the brain consolidate new memories and recover from its daily activities. How dolphins actually sleep and swim, is by shutting down one side of their brain and simultaneously closing the opposite eye. This means if their left side of the brain is resting, their right eye will be closed and vice versa. Generally in one 24 hour cycle, each half of their brain gets 4 hours of sleep to recover from the days activity. There are three reason why the dolphins brains have evolved to work in this unihemispheric slow wave sleep. First, dolphins would likely drown if they didn't keep half of their brain active, because their breathing is always consciously controlled. Second, this type of sleep having half their brain awake also protects them from danger of predators. Third this type of sleep allows the dolphin to keep up certain physiological processes, such as muscle movement, that helps the warm-blooded mammal maintain the body heat it needs to survive in the frigid ocean. If you are wondering why they are called Spinner Dolphins, it is believed they jump and spin out of the water also to rest their muscles. Flying through the air and covering distance is much more effortless than swimming through the water. The spinning is caused from the torque of their tail pushing the water just as they break the surface of the ocean. After some time enjoying this massive pod of spinner dolphins, the snorkelling group enjoyed some time in the waters off Maui seeing many types of fish, sea turtles, coral and many beautiful plants and sponge. The catamarans captain definitely went above and beyond informing everyone about the nature and wildlife in the Maui waters.