Our morning began EARLY but with sunshine and dolphins. Our arrival to Bailey’s Key was greeted with several dolphins as we learned “on the fly” how to recognize individuals. Both Susie and BigBoy (Bailey’s Key’s feline guardians) were as attentive to Kathleen as were the students. Tank showed off his binocular vision as he spied Kathleen underwater (feature photo). We need to remember we are also always being watched – Lenca and Ronnie were following us as we walked around the docks.
After a delicious breakfast, we learned why photo-identification is important and more officially how to recognize each of the individual dolphins here at RIMS. After a morning in the classroom, we had a bit of free time to investigate the resort … and wound up at the swimming pool. Lunch was light but good, after which we had an intro to the Space Use Data collection methods and various dolphin activity levels. Then we shifted from classroom attire to swimsuits and headed over the Bailey’s Key. Our late afternoon was snorkel filled with a nice session on the NE of Bailey’s followed by practicing space use data collection and some more dolphin ID recognition. The afternoon wrapped up with meeting the trainers and some of the dolphins up-close. It was amazing to see some of their behaviors, especially Ronnie and his new spiral-spin leap (see video on DCP social media).
We wrapped the learning today with the Fish ID lecture and gained some new insight into how to recognize the myriad fish we will see each day. Dinner was delicious and our day wrap up fun.
Evelyn – this was the first time I never had goose bumps in the ocean, and it felt great!
Dominick – I love snorkeling because it makes me feel like a fish.
Avery – it was awesome getting started with hands on research and being a part of training with the dolphins.
Anna – I’m looking forward to more snorkeling and see if I can pay more attention and notice more things next time.
Savanna – it was great meeting Georgie, Bailey and Stan and their trainers. And watching Ronnie do cool corkscrews.
Katie – feeding dolphins and debating desserts were the highlight of my day.
Olivia – I’m excited for more snorkeling opportunities this week.
Megan – it was amazing getting to pet a dolphin.
Sarah – I really enjoyed interacting with the dolphins and seeing all the behaviors they were able to learn even at a young age.
Don – eagle rays, turtles, sea horses – don’t be jealous.
Manon – Thanks to the trainers for allowing our group to meet the dolphins this afternoon and to share their love of training and working with them.
Shane – I enjoyed seeing the students’ expressions when they got to meet the dolphins. Also highly impressed by the corkscrew leap Ronnie did – see DCP FB page.
Tomorrow brings another data collection session and our visit to Maya Key.
Cheers
The CSU nonuplets