Captain Mike's operation launched in the early 1990s when commercial dolphin-watching along Georgia's coast was still measured by the dozen, not the hundreds who now board seasonal cruises from Lazaretto Creek Marina. The 18-mile stretch of water between Tybee Island and Little Tybee Island shelters one of the Atlantic's most reliable year-round populations of bottlenose dolphins, a fact that Savannah-area naturalists documented as early as the 1970s but which remained largely unknown to the wider tourism market until the mid-1980s. Captain Mike Dobson, a former shrimper who'd spent two decades mapping the shoals and oyster beds off Tybee's eastern flank, began offering dolphin sightings as an informal add-on to inshore fishing charters, often spotting pods of six or more during the outbound run to the artificial reefs three miles offshore. By 1993 the dolphin component had eclipsed the fishing entirely, and Tybee Island dolphin tours Captain Mike became a shorthand among Savannah families for a two-hour loop that hugged the no-wake zone along the Wilmington River before opening throttle past the Cockspur Island Lighthouse and into the open sound. The tours operated from a single 32-foot Carolina skiff with bench seating for 18, no canopy, and a cooler stocked with soft drinks. Word spread through hotel concierge desks rather than websites, and advance reservations were taken by phone on a kitchen landline. What distinguished Captain Mike's approach from the handful of competitors was his willingness to idle the engine and drift when dolphins surfaced, a practice that allowed passengers to hear the animals' exhalations and occasionally their echolocation clicks, rather than chasing pods at speed the way many commercial operators did. Marine biologists from the University of Georgia's Skidaway Institute began citing his tours in public outreach materials as an example of low-impact wildlife observation, and by the late 1990s the operation had added a second vessel and extended the schedule to seven days a week during summer months. The Tybee Island dolphin tours Captain Mike tour model influenced a wave of similar businesses that opened along the Georgia and South Carolina coasts between 2000 and 2010, many of them adopting the drift-and-observe protocol and the two-hour runtime. Captain Mike himself retired from daily operations in 2014, handing over the helm to a crew of licensed captains who'd trained under him, though the brand retained his name and his emphasis on patient, narrated encounters rather than high-speed spectacle. The business formally ceased operations in 2022, a closure attributed to rising fuel costs, insurance premiums that tripled after Hurricane Matthew, and the owner's decision not to pass the enterprise to a third generation. The two vessels were sold to separate operators in Hilton Head and Jekyll Island, where they continue to run dolphin cruises under different names, and the Lazaretto Creek slip now berths a fleet of paddleboard rentals. Despite the closure, Tybee Island remains one of the densest dolphin-watching corridors on the southeastern seaboard, with sightings logged on more than 90 percent of summer cruises according to data compiled by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The animals feed in the tidal creeks at dawn and dusk, following mullet and menhaden schools into water shallow enough that dorsal fins break the surface within 50 feet of the shore. Several current operators offer variations on the route Captain Mike pioneered, including sunset tiki boat cruises that combine dolphin observation with open-bar service and a DJ, a format that appeals to bachelorette parties and corporate outings but diverges sharply from the quiet, educational ethos that defined the original tours.