Category: Bimini 2004

    Of course, as you all know by now, Sundays mean a new group of passengers, eager to see and swim with dolphins. This week, folks came from New Hampshire, New York, Colorado, New Mexico and England¡Xand what a great group they were! Many of the passengers were return guests and the first-timers really enjoyed themselves.

On Wednesday we didn’t see dolphins until 19:37 (we left the dock at 15:20). It was a mixed age and species group and included Hook (#57). We were only able to get into the water for a short encounter (< 3 minutes). There was leaping in the distance and the occasional bow ride. Then it was back to the dock.
    Today, our final trip of the week, we saw dolphins just 50 minutes into the boat trip.

We saw dolphins on the early side yesterday and today. Monday’s trip we were able to stay with a group of spotted dolphins (not in the water though) for almost 3 hours! It was amazing. Among the dolphins were #s 4, 10, 17, 22, 64, 69, 77, 78 and possibly #48. They were seen quite close to the island, but were traveling slowing south. We were able to get into the water between 19:07 and 19:34 with #s 4, 10, 22 and 64. We observed a lot of play and mating behavior.

Today the new group for the week arrived. We had our meet-and-greet, after the phone calls with Mystic and the folks seem great! The guests come from Canada, England and Japan. On today’s boat trip, we saw a group of 8 bottlenose dolphins. There were a couple younger ones in the group and some that we are getting used to seeing on a regular basis (one is almost completely missing its dorsal fin). They appeared to be crater feeding, but when passengers got in the water for a closer look, the dolphins weren’t interested.

  As soon as August arrives, we spend quite a bit of time watching local weather and the radar screen. This week the weather has at least been consistent in the fact that storms seem to roll in between 7 and 8:00 p.m. We now find ourselves missing our lovely July weather!
    Yesterday’s morning trip went off without a hitch, however no dolphins were seen. We have only a few morning trips each season, so it is hard determine why we didn’t see dolphins.

    Monday’s talk went very well! We are continually impressed with the interest and questions weekly passengers offer us. This week, we added a short, self-navigable PowerPoint presentation to show passengers some of our more easily identifiable dolphins. This allows them to help us ID animals out at sea. Unfortunately, bad weather followed yesterday’s talk and our afternoon trip was cancelled.
    But, have no fear! Today’s trip brought lots of smiles and gave us about 30 minutes of video.

    This week’s group is very excited about the days ahead—which makes us excited too! Today they arrived and we met as a group prior to boat departure to go over introductions, history, expectations and boat safety. Then, we were off! About two hours into the trip, we saw splashes in the distance and found a group of 8 spotteds. A mixed age group, they seemed to be traveling, but did let us in the water for a few minutes.

 Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with us again on Wednesday. Both our morning and afternoon trips did go out however, leaving us looking and feeling like drowned rats. We saw one bottlenose, but no spotteds.
    Things looked up a bit on Thursday weather-wise and we did see a group of six spotteds in the morning and had two short encounters with them. We recognized #1 (!) and #77. We have ideas of who some others are, but we have to wait until we get a better look at the video, albeit brief footage.

Yesterday we did our weekly dolphin discussion with our passengers. Again, we were pleased to see the interest people have in the dolphins and DCP’s research. Folks asked great questions and really seemed to enjoy “meeting” the individual dolphins in our catalog and discovery different ways to identify each of them. Out on the boat in the afternoon we were able to see some spotted dolphins, but they seemed to be traveling, so we were only able to get in the water briefly.

Sunday afternoon was spent doing “meet and greets” and getting to know this week’s passengers. This week is a great family week- one family from England, one from Florida, a couple from Tokyo (who have been swimming with the Mikura dolphins!!) and then some passengers from up North. Today was the season’s 15 trip and we first saw a group of 16 bottlenose dolphins soon out of the harbor.