Sea Turtle, Nurse Shark, and Space

Early morning … data collection was spent observing dolphins through a silty, particulate lens. I.e., the underwater visibility was “crappy,” but the dolphins were social and spent much time playing with sea grass and seaweed.

Space-Use data were collected two times this morning! Both sessions were dolphin swims. (Heather and Melissa will be happy with the additional data … and the additional work!) We also spent time just watching the dolphins at the surface. Sandy is expert at catching tiny puffer fishes and then we noticed today that the other young dolphins take advantage of the catch. Buzz was “playing with” – aka traumatizing – a tiny puffer fish! We are not sure if it got away … but it was definitely not unscathed!

Manon did an afternoon boat snorkel and saw a hawksbill sea turtle and an 8 ft long nurse shark! The nurse shark was near to the end of the snorkel and so no one else saw it … but she has photographic proof!

And, tonight, after dinner, we all saw the ISS pass over head. Yes, we mean the International Space Station! We’d been trying to get a view over the last 2-3 nights and tonight it was brightly visible just passing the moon and stayed in the sky visible for about 4 minutes! Woohoo! (The tiny white dot to the left of the moon, which is the big white dot, in this image is the ISS!)

Until tomorrow,

cheers

DCP’s June Ecotour Team (aka DCP’s JETs)

P.S. Here is our pre-dinner view at AKR: