No fireworks here - natural or otherwise. Yesterday, I was away from my computer and Mikura Island, only returning this morning. I had the opportunity to visit Miyake and visit a few friends. To see for myself that everyone was okay. Other than having the water turned off while pipes are fixed, everyone is fine. And, I experienced more earthquakes than on Mikura for all last week. The 'jishin' are still occuring but less than last week. These are stronger as well than the ones I felt on Mikura.
Two sub-groups of about 10-15 dolphins The dolphins today were silent and swimming slowly with about 1-2 minutes between surfacings. Just prior to our visit, another senchoo told us the dsolphins had been socializing and playing. Guess they were tired out. I did get some video of the one Adult female with her calf that we had not been able to identify two weeks ago. She has relatively few scars so we need to check a bit more before confirming her identity in our records. The wind was still up but the sun was shining with few clouds.
A trip of firsts ... The wind was still about 15-20 knots and gusting around parts of Mikura. We had 1.o meter swells around Motone and both east and west of Motone. We saw dolphins only around Otaura, but they were just completely not interested. We would see them when they took a breath and then wait another 2 minutes before they surface again ... about 100-200 meters away. We were not even able to follow consistently because the wind gave us a surface chop with lots of little white caps. ...