... and lots and lots of dolphins! We left port at 13:14 and saw dolphins 15 minutes later. And saw dolphins till we left them to return to port at 15:50! We saw the first three subadults at Numurine (we saw these three again later on our third water entry). One was #145 ('Y-chan' because she has a Y-shaped mark on her right side.) and two other buddies. In fact Y-chan spent the day with us ... bow riding or playing underwater.
More rain and boats filled with okyakusan will keep us in port today.When the weather is bad ... i.e., rain and fog but no wind, the senchoo take six okyakusan as the maximum number of passengers. Thus, we will spend our time on shore today analyzing data.
For every hour of data I gather (i.e., record), I have at least 15-20 hours of analysis time. First I need to log what is on each tape ... for easy future reference. Then, I conduct the primary identifications on the animals.
And, ID's of the second and third calves of the year! (well, of their moms) Our second boat trip was today. We saw dolphins in much the same places as yesterday but today we saw some amazing behavior. The first group we saw was composed mostly of adult females and young juveniles, likely last year's calves. There were also a few pregnant females swimming along together. And yes, there were a group or two of rambunctious young males.