We woke up to rain and thunder, but that omen did not impact the bulk of our day. Although it did rain some more, we covered the topics of mirror self-recognition, an intro to dolphin behavior (and how to study it) and fish ID & lionfish invasion. The boat left at 15:30 and we had a beautiful snorkel at the big sister of the 3 Sisters. Among other fish, we saw tangs, foureye butterfly fish, squid, sergeant majors – but, we did not see any lionfish. Then we drove “forever” into the wild blue yonder in search of dolphins. When we did see dolphins, they preferred a large hull to our tiny bodies. But, we did get to observe them from the boat for quite awhile. They were riding the waves and the group size fluctuated from 4 to up to 17 individuals. Some of us did jump in the water, with increasing waves, but we did not see the dolphins under water. Over the course of the day we did the following dolphins from the boat: Romeo (#10), Lumpy (#17), Swoosh (#36), Tilly (#87), un-named #24 and 40, and, I think, Niecey (#48) as well as several un-marked calves.
It was a chilly ride home, but our spaghetti and meatball dinner was a good fix!
Until tomorrow,
The 2012 E & E Crew