We greeted the day by observing dolphins! Sadly, on this day celebrating world turtle day, we found a dead green sea turtle on the beach at Bailey’s Key. The Roatan Marine Park personnel handled the carcass … and might be able to determine cause of death. She was a big turtle. Our dolphin observations went well, and it was a mostly slow, calm morning. There was much rubbing but not much vocal activity. We ate a quick breakfast before trekking across the dock to the IMS dock to return to Bailey’s for our dolphin encounter and swim (Thank you Kristin for the photo!). We met Tilly up close and personal today. The swim was playful with lots of sea grass and some rubbing and fin touches. After our swim, we collected space use data for the encounter and swim after us. It was a morning spent at Bailey’s Key! Lunch was yummy and we were all hungry! The afternoon brought us a talk by Kristin on social norms in non-human animals. It was a lively presentation and discussion. We also got another chance to practice dolphin IDs from the video. A slight afternoon break was welcome for rejuvenation before the evening meal and blog.
Marriah – Our dolphin snorkel was really exciting today. Rocky played with my fins and I got to play sea grass with some of the others.
Amalia – Today I got stung by a jellyfish, but it was worth it because I got to play with Sandy.
Daniel – Today I enjoyed our second dolphin encounter and I’m excited for our morning snorkel tomorrow.
Liz – In celebration of world green sea turtle day I saw a turtle but unfortunately it was dead.
Anna – Today I learned that dolphins really are related to cows. They were on land then in the water and that’s thanks for evolution. Their ancestor is the Mesonychid condolarth.
Katariina – Today I had an amazing day swimming with the dolphins and also learned from Kristin about animal cultures.
Poppy – I got to eat a lot of mangos today and it was really good.
Shereen – I really enjoyed snorkeling with the dolphins and playing a leaf game with them. A few snuck up on me from behind.
Richard – My friend said dolphins feel like boiled eggs. She is wrong, they feel like ripe mangos.
Kristin – Today when Poppy and I were taking surface data, a dolphin who is not Poli did beak-to-genital on Kami and I was very excited to see that. I had a special time swimming with Rocky.
Manon – Today Poli brought me Kami several times … much closer than I would have expected.
Tomorrow is more data collection and also more snorkeling on the reef.
Until then,
Cheers
The York U team