A morning 30 min underwater session after training & swim We did our usual morning swim at 6:00 am (before data collection) and saw many brightly colored reef fish and squid. Very cool!
Our morning session at Bailey's Key began at 8:00 am with one hour surface observation to add to our knowledge of the daily activity patterns of these dolphins. Kathleen was in the water at ~10:00 am after the morning training session. The dolphins were VERY vocal - lots of whistles and some clicks.
A morning of summarizing, an afternoon in the water We've been in the water 12 days for 21 underwater observation sessions. We've gathered 15 hours of video with sound data and 14 hours of echolocation click data. We have spent 32 hours in surface observation: initially acquainting ourselves with the dolphin identities and when the MVA3 is in the water. We've spent another 26 hours beginning analyses of the videotapes. We've also slept and eaten a little bit.
Mika is the object of desire today We started at 7:15 am on a 30 min session that was soon lengthened to 60 min due to great underwater visbility (~12 m) and playful, social dolphins. There was much splashing and surface rolling suggesting much activity. This was confirmed by Robin.
Nuzzling of rostrum to body (rostrum, chest, belly) was seen among the older dolphins. The adult females had their calves in infant position (P3) for several minutes each.
At about half way through the session about 8 dive boats in a row went out for dives.