The dolphins were mostly resting – it seems 'recovering' from the rough seas.
The wind had increased and so we spent most of our trip between Shojine and Ebiiso. We had two sightings of dolphins today but only observed individuals from the second group under water. And, twice I was quite surprised when all of a sudden there was a dolphin within one meter on my left or right! That is how bad the visibility was. I heard their clicks and whistles, but unless I spent my time waiting about 2 meters below the surface, I barely could see the dolphins.
So, I spent as much time as I could more than 2 m below the surface. I watched Sankaku (#073) glide along the bottom for a bit of time. Another adult female (#052) who was with Sankaku seemed in an 'irritable' mood as she often expelled bubble clouds about 1 m below the surface. Well, okay, once and we only saw her twice under water. There were two juveniles with these females.
While there seemed to be about a dozen dolphins in the area, they had long intervals between surface respirations and were in sub-groups of three to four dolphins. Until our last water entry when about 10 dolphins surfaced together. They were moving swiftly and I was only able to observe another adult female (#030) and her 2 year old juvenile.
Still, it was good to be on and in the water and observing dolphins again. I recorded about 12 min of data (including lots of blank water footage) today.
Till tomorrow,
Kathleen