It’s midafternoon on our tour boat, now bobbing gently in the calm, cobalt waters situated just outside of ʼŌpūnohu Bay on Moorea’s famed north coast. For our shore excursion for Day 2 of a week-long Dreams of Tahiti (Papeete-to-Papeete) Windstar Cruise on Star Breeze in March 2024 — about 12 of us in all — we’re setting out to see the island’s resident spinner dolphins in action.
Our guide? Only the one of the world’s foremost experts, American marine biologist Dr. Michael Poole, aka Dr. Dolphin.
The first scientist to study dolphins and whales in French Polynesia beginning in 1987, Poole started offering eco-tours in 1992 (also the first of their kind in the country) to help fund his research. Eager to share his knowledge, his tours were popular with locals and tourists from the start.
“We’ve got dolphins up ahead, 12 o’clock, between us and that boat!” he says, animated, as if he, too, is seeing spinner dolphins for the first time.
We follow his gaze toward a tight formation of dark-gray dorsal fins rising and falling in unison, their tiny bodies catching sunlight with each rhythmic resurfacing.
Agile and compact like a gymnast, they’re among the smallest oceanic dolphin species, Poole says — up to 7 feet and 200 pounds. Bottlenose dolphins like Flipper, by comparison, are two times longer and up to six times heavier.
“Spinner dolphins are the most aerially acrobatic species of dolphin in the world, and do more jumps and more types of jumps than any other species,” he says. “And they are the only ones to spin like a ballerina.”
A spinner dolphin leaps into the air near the front of our boat, a twirling flash of gray, then splashes into the water. With each pirouette that follows, so does our chorus of “ooohs” and “aaahs.”
Nocturnal hunters, these dolphins spent last night diving 300 to 400 meters deep — 100 stories below the surface — and now, Poole says, this is their socialization period. It’s basically a victory dance, much like we did in high school after winning the big game.
“We had a victory celebration. ‘We’re the champions! We won the big game last night!’” he says. “Then we crashed out afterwards.”
Following a midday siesta, he says, they boost their adrenaline with yet more activity to prepare for the next “big game.”
“These dolphins have a pep rally before heading out to sea for that nighttime feeding,” he says. “They’re going to be spinning up in the air and jumping all over each other.”
“A very successful tour, folks!” he jokes, having just started the tour. “We’ll head back!”
“Wait. How long is this?” one woman asks.
“It’s a three-hour tour,” Poole says. “The name of this boat is the Minnow.”
Everyone chuckles save for my two teenage sons, ages 18 and 16, too young to appreciate Gilligan’s Island and the antics of seven madcap characters trying to survive on a deserted island. I think to myself that Gilligan, Skipper, and the others would’ve happily gotten “stuck” in a place like Moorea.
Nicknamed “Tahiti’s Little Sister,” just a 35-minute ferry ride away, Moorea may have less brand recognition than Tahiti or Bora Bora. But if Tahiti is the bigger, more sophisticated sister who’s eager for bustling streets, cultural centers, and fine dining, Moorea is the athletic one wearing board shorts and flip flops who’s ready for adventure.
A heart-shaped island roughly one-eighth the size of Tahiti, Moorea’s iconic north coast spans the arched “lobes” of the heart with twin notches for each bay: Cook’s on the east of the sacred mountain, Mount Rotui; ʼŌpūnohu to the west.
Poole is everything you’d expect of a marine biologist who’s lived for nearly 40 years in Moorea: barefooted and wearing a white t-shirt and swimming trunks, a sun-faded baseball cap concealing shoulder-length, brown hair.
We pepper him with questions, and he answers them like an old friend while keeping an eye out for spinner dolphins.
How did you learn French? Why do spinner dolphins spin?
Answers: He courted his Tahitian wife using an English-French dictionary, who eventually admitted she studied English in school. (They married in 1990.) We don’t know why spinner dolphins spin, but we have an idea that it’s wired into their genome, like a male dog that instinctively….
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