Last Day – Dolphins and Packing!

Our last morning session with the dolphins started with a greeting by all of them at the water taxi stand, which announced what followed. Everyone also seemed to greet Kathleen and Manon on the blue platform before entry. Only Champ and Stan were hanging on their own in the back area. Ronnie, French and Lenca were with everyone in the main lagoon. And, Tank and Ronnie delighted in Kathleen’s fins and legs … Thankfully, Tilly and Sandy were playing with sea weed and Calli, Poli and Woody spent time circling Kathleen and the MVA when not social with each other.

This week we completed 20 sessions for data collection that resulted in about 10.5 hours of GoPro data and 10.5 hours of MVA4 video data. We will be busy for a while logging and analyzing these data! But, they offer some new insight into how moms and their calves share contact behavior (even with the pec fin!).

The late morning and early afternoon was all about packing! Cleaning and breaking down gear – snorkel gear and the MVA4. And packing everything for storage or transport. You can see our room was “exploded” for a bit of time as we sorted and packed!

Our afternoon was slow and included some swimming and some hammock time.

We celebrated Don’s birthday – Happy Birthday Don! – a couple days early. It has been a good week!

Cheers

Kathleen, Manon, Don & Ron