On Wednesday morning, we went through ¾ of the underwater still photos collected during Tuesday’s amazing swim with bottlenose dolphins. Although many of the photographs were more suitable for behavior documentation and not photo-ID, we were able to confirm that Tt15 was in the group! The “Tt” in the ID code stands for “Tursiops truncatus” which is the Latin, or scientific, name for a bottlenose dolphin. We were thrilled to confirm this ID as well as add additional sections of its body to Tt15’s ID files.
The afternoon brought dolphin trip #4 of the week. We headed out at 1430 with winds slightly more in the east which gave us some protection as we searched for bottlenose along the coastline. It seemed immediately there they were! Two bottlenose dolphins were traveling south. They showed no signs of slowing down, so we followed them. Soon, then changed directions again, heading back where they came from – we wondered what they were searching for! We observed them for a bit longer before opting to go in search of other dolphins. We took a 20 minute break to snorkel the “Bimini Road” (aka “Atlantis”) and then headed into choppy seas to look for more dolphins. Although we did not see them, we were thrilled to see so much of the first two bottlenose dolphins and look forward to trying to ID their dorsal fins tomorrow – including the very distinct fin pictured here!
Until then,
Kel & the SCS Team