This morning’s session presented exceptionally great underwater visibility with views of the dolphins at 10 meters plus away from Kathleen and the MVA, as depicted by Ronnie in the feature photo. This vis meant the session went longer than planned and there was lots of social behavior to document. You cannot tell how good the vis is in this photo but everyone was ready to go!
Georgie was with Poli while Kami was with Tilly at the start and Bailey swam between both pairs. Both Tilly and Alita, separately, did surface pectoral fin slaps … that were recorded underwater! The young males were social with each other, which means some sections of today’s video could be considered R-rated! Again, Kathleen was observed equally as much as she observed the dolphins.
On the way to data collection, we found a naked hermit crab – i.e., shell-less. We hope it found a new home!
The morning had some folks diving and others snorkeling and almost everyone was on a boat this afternoon again for diving and snorkeling. And, we did the night snorkel and dive where we saw three octopus – two in the coral and one over the sea grass, as well as 3 squid, 1 shrimp, 2 lionfish, 2 moray eels (a spotted and a purplemouth eel), and lots of other nighttime critters on the reef.
Before the night snorkel, Kathleen and Manon gave a talk to the other student group and some of DCP’s group about our dolphin research results and our comparative studies of dolphins in managed care and in the wild. Lots of questions from a very enthusiastic group.
Dinner was late but yummy with good conversation and desserts. Tomorrow returns us to 6:30 for data collection because we have dives/snorkels on the first boat of the morning (8:30).
Cheers
Kaylie, Marianne, Mickey, Sue, Savanna, Michael, Michelle, Bill, Manon, Kathleen