Jerry McArthur is a B.C.-based entrepreneur who has dedicated his career to exploring the ocean.
A recent encounter in Howe Sound, north of Vancouver, reminds him of why.
McArthur was out on his electric hydrofoil — a propeller-driven ocean glider that he designs and sells — when he was suddenly surrounded by dolphins.
Fortunately, he was filming the experience using a 360-degree camera.
“This is insane,” he yelled as dozens of the marine mammals started swimming alongside him, some jumping out of the water. “I don’t want to hit one of them.”
The dolphins matched speed, swooping underneath and surfacing alongside him for an encounter that he says lasted for nearly 20 minutes.
He said he and his friend spotted the animals in the distance at first and tried to avoid them, but the dolphins had other ideas.
“They wanted to play, I guess,” he said.
A recently-returned species to B.C.
The dolphins are Pacific white-sided dolphins, also known as a hookfin porpoise, which, according to the non-profit conservation group Oceana, are “a truly acrobatic species of dolphin that love to show off.”
“They are frequently seen riding the bows and wakes of ships, and will even perform spectacular leaps, flips, spins and somersaults at high speeds.”
They tend to live in the temperate waters of the North Pacific, from the coasts of California north to Alaska.
The animals had largely disappeared from B.C.’s coast in the early 2000s, according to the Pacific Whale Watch Association, but have started reappearing over the past decade in pods of up to 200 — though elsewhere, they have been known to swim in schools of thousands.
McArthur said while he’s encountered lots of marine life, he’s never experienced anything like he did this week.
“All I could see were dolphins … there were probably about 100.”
McArthur said the encounter is also a good example of why he designed the device he was riding on, marketed as a Hydroflyer, which he started creating in his basement and is now sold in 18 countries.
“It’s kind of like the mountain bike of the sea,” he said.
As he explained during a 2021 appearance on Dragon’s Den, he wanted to create a quieter way to move through the ocean than what was offered by traditional personal watercraft that run on gas, making loud noises and leaving wakes that might scare off marine life — like pods of curious dolphins.
“I was on cloud nine,” he said.
Jerry and Wendy McArthur from Pemberton, BC, present their electric hydrofoil jetski.
