Thursday was another long day out on the boat for the new DCP interns. They left the shore around noon and didn’t get back until sunset. We hoped that we may have gotten a few more sightings in with the early departure time but that didn’t seem to be the case on Thursday. Today at least, the dolphins around Bimini just weren’t that active earlier in the day. It wasn’t until around four that we had our first sighting: A mother calf pair of spotted dolphins zipped by the boat. The calf looked ready to stick around and play but mom looked like she had somewhere she needed to go so they didn’t stay for too long. We also saw a pair of bottlenose dolphins at the same time in the distance. We lost track of both pairs and decided to keep going to look for other dolphins.
As the sun was starting to set we decided to head back in to shore hoping that we might see some dolphins as we came in. Our optimism was rewarded as we came across a group of 15 or so spotted dolphins on our way back. Mixed in the group we saw at least four calves. These guys sure had a lot of energy! Every few minutes they would leap out of the water chasing after one another, especially in the boat wake when Al had to maneuver the boat. Al’s clients made the most of their last day with him while we focused on surface observations. With the sun setting we had to get going back before it got dark so we said goodbye to our little friends and left for home.
We all have a couple days before our next boat trip so the interns are hoping to spend the weekend exploring the island a bit more and helping out with the vet clinic on Saturday.
To those in the US, have a fin’tastic 4th of July Weekend,
Kali, Ellyne & Kel