Three’s Company

Three Pacific white-sided dolphins sped alongside the research vessel Atlantis during an October 2006 transit along the Oregon coast. “A school of perhaps 200 of them surrounded us for a half-hour, matching our speed and surfing our bow wake,” said able seaman Lance Wills, a relief crewmember for the WHOI-operated ship. “They streaked through the water like torpedoes and leapt into the air like ballerinas.” (Photo by Lance Wills, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)