Category: Bimini 2005

The Blandings arrive safely and the boat trip is fabulous!  Darcie was up at the crack of dawn today attempting to collect her parents, who, no doubt were wandering around wherever uniformed employees and officers were directing them.

But no dolphins until SundayLet’s see…where to start. Yesterday began with data, emails and errands, was interrupted by 2 hours of rain, continued with a nice non-dolphin boat trip and ended with Darcie’s first night dive! Lobster season opened last Monday, 1 August. For those of you familiar with northern/New England lobsters, you would be confused by the creature with the same name here. Lobsters here do not have claws like their northern counterparts and have spiny bodies, making them difficult to handle, but giving them their name, spiny lobsters.

Good passengers and 2 hours of dolphins…     Today was a nice day on the boat…the sea was exceptionally flat and we first spotted dolphins at 17:50.

So video logs it is!   Although there was a dolphin trip scheduled for today, it was shifted until tomorrow to accommodate more passengers. So, we took the opportunity to do video logs until our eyeballs were about to fall right out of our heads! We are officially through Tape 4 and nearly through Tape 5. That leaves us Tape 6 and Tape 7, which is currently in the camera.
    Video logs that are done here in the field are the most preliminary type.

Meet our dive-certified friend Darcie!     So, today we got to the errands we couldn’t do yesterday and then went diving…and….Darcie is now officially certified to SCUBA dive!!! Congratulations Darcie! The dive site was Atlantis, an area we are familiar with through snorkeling.

Public holiday doesn’t mean a day off for us… Today was “August Monday” a public holiday in the Bahamas, commemorating Emancipation Day. Thus, our errands to the phone company and bank couldn’t happen. But, that didn’t mean our dolphin trip wouldn’t!
    The boat trip began in its usual fashion, however with passengers who were just onboard for the day. We had a quick visit from a bottlenose at 18:36 and at 19:20. This may have been the same individual, but we are not sure.

Today had local flare!     Both of us grew up with a washer and dryer in our homes. Heading to the laundromat here on Bimini, however, can make doing laundry an adventure in and of itself. You never know what you are going to get—will there be plenty of washers available? Will the washer be available, but not the dryer half an hour later? Will your bottle of laundry detergent get a hole in the bottom and leak all over the road? Things like this make laundry day a challenge.

A relaxing day at East Wells Today we spent a little time doing data and then had a “fun” day on a friend’s boat. The destination was the Eastern part of Bimini, at the point where a channel cuts through the island. (For those of you who read our field report from 17 June, this was the same area we saw the sandpiper eggs. No sign of the birds today). We snorkel for a bit, seeing a variety of fish, including puffer fish and snapper.

Last trip of the week     Today’s trip was a nice end to the very diverse dolphin week. We’ve seen just about everything this week, now that the bottlenose visited the boat today. It was a mildly curious group that allowed us two short encounters with them. Even though DCP does not focus on the bottlenose in these waters, Darcie got in the water with the MVA in the event that something noteworthy should occur- we didn’t want to miss it! We’ll have to see how the video comes out.

But we didn’t get to see it…This morning we, along with much of the US we’re sure, were attentive to the launch of NASA’s shuttle Discovery. After keeping an eye on CNN and “local” coverage (local meaning South Florida) of the launch, we headed to the beach just before liftoff. We have been told by others on the island that if visibility cooperates, the shuttle can actually be seen from the shores of Bimini. Today this was not the case.