On Wednesday, some of us woke early for a morning walk. The big winner in this exercise was Ben, who found $120 on the beach! With no one around to claim it, he savored his good luck. Our class session was a discussion about ecotourism, bringing our conversation full circle from the first day. Kel shared (one of her many) soap boxes and we experienced our first Bimini power outage. Thankfully, it was short.
On Tuesday, we began with our yummy breakfast, the blog and some photo-ID.
On Monday morning, it was a large thunderclap that woke us! Soon our bellies were full, our blog was written and we were discussing mixed species interactions. We all agreed that people cannot put our personal/human expectations and social constructs onto dolphins, particularly when it comes to socio-sexual interactions and mating techniques. (For more on this, check out Dr.
Sunday began bright and early. Breakfast was only 30 minutes earlier than usual, but it felt like a lifetime earlier. We headed to South Bimini – and from the beginning our journey, we were being swarmed by no-see-ums, referred to by us as “The Devil’s Creatures.” No-see-ums are actually sandflies and while there are some on North Bimini, South Bimini is notorious for them. We braved these vicious creatures for good reason: a tour of the South Bimini Biological Field Station, aka The SharkLab.
We always have to start with a balanced breakfast and Saturday was no exception. We wrote Friday’s blog and then discussed dolphin social structure, including associations between mothers. Who knew how appropriate this topic would be!
Lunch began with conch (and vege) salad and Caesar salad. Some of us really like it – and others were at least happy to have tried it. It seemed to depend on individual’s take on the consistency of the conch.
Friday began with a sleepy start after breakfast and blog, going straight into lecture. We briefly recapped the topic of play before moving onto group living in cetaceans. We discussed the baleen whales in addition to the toothed whales.
On Thursday, we woke up, had breakfast and wrote our blog, before watching a video and practicing using an ethogram. We had a lecture on play and then our morning break. Some of us went to the straw market and others got ready for lunch. Casey is our resident hair stylist, specializing in a-mazing braids that are perfect for snorkeling. What would we do without her? (Be very frustrated!). We returned for lunch and boat prep.
The boat departed at 14:30 today so that we could snorkel the Bimini Road, aka The Road to Atlantis.
After our now-standard morning routine of deliciousness (aka breakfast) and blog writing, our Wednesday continued with a lecture about ethograms and different methods for sampling animal behavior. We revisited the Dolphin House and Mr. Saunders had us put up the tiles we brought him – he was really happy and we were honored to have contributed to the Dolphin House. Several of us met “Skippy” (some of us more than once!), a friendly local.
When we woke on Tuesday, it was sad and dreary – but even before this, Dr. M, Dom & Ben braved the rainy skies and walked four miles! After breakfast and our blog, we discussed the assigned articles on photo-identification. After class, some of us went to the beach for a bit and played Cards Against Humanity.
Monday morning began with writing our blog, following by lecture. We got an introduction to DCP and the dolphins we will see off Bimini before learning about the DCP cameras and what we should aim to do in order to get good photo-ID pictures. After class, we headed to the beach to practice snorkeling. The waves were really strong and Captain Al mentioned that this was the first time in a long time that the waves were actually rolling and breaking on shore.