Holy cow…
Today was our last trip with this group of passengers. The day began with a group of 8 bottlenose right along the shore. We spent 8 minutes with the group before heading further north in search of spotteds. We came up a group of 4 spotteds at 17:06. It was #29 (White Blotch) and her calf, #81 with fresh cuts on the right side of its peduncle and an older, unknown dolphin. They weren’t terribly interested in us silly humans, but we were able to get a few quick glimpses of them underwater. We have been trying to determine the sex of #81, so hopefully we’ll be able to see it in the video.
After that group left our area, we continued to travel slowly through the “dolphin grounds.” Just as everyone was getting the feeling that we would not see anymore dolphins today, we saw something close to the boat…but, we were right, there would be no more dolphins today. Instead, we saw TWO manta rays! They were incredible to watch from the boat and even more incredible to see….underwater! We were extremely surprised that they stayed once people were swimming, but they did, occasionally coming quite close (within 3 feet!). Again, we do not know why they are hanging out in this part of the water, but we’ll take the experience without complaint!
Tomorrow we’ll be diving south of the island and then there may be a dolphin trip on Saturday.
Until then,
Kel and Darcie