When will things really flatten out?
First thing’s first: We were able to fix the controls on the MVA reasonably easily this morning. A major source of stress relieved, so we are very happy.
Next, the boat was filled with happy passengers, including a few extra guests, as the seas had flattened somewhat, although they are still rougher than we like. We began the trip with a snorkel stop at Atlantis and listened to Audley’s (member of Bimini Undersea’s crew) lovely briefing on the history behind the sight. Once we were done here, it was off to the dolphin grounds and we came upon a group of spotted dolphins, along with other dolphin boats, at about 1745. We know some of our “regulars” were here, including #25, #36 (Swoosh), #48 (Niecey) and #77 (Dolphin Dandy). We swam with this group for about 10 minutes and soon after we were back on the boat, two other calves joined the group. Because the two were still quite young, we are guessing that their mothers were nearby, but we did not see them. We were able to be in the water for about 20 minutes, and hope that we got some good calf footage for Darcie’s Master’s thesis.
And of course, the day wouldn’t be complete without a showing by the local bottlenose. At 1927 we saw a group of at least 10 animals. We’ve been noticing that when we see bottlenose, there are more young animals than in groups seen in previous years. Not sure what that may mean, but it was interesting to note that we haven’t seen the old, beat up bottlenose as regularly yet this year.
One more trip tomorrow, then the boat week is over. We’ll see how it goes!
Until then,
Kel and Darcie