The weather is threatening mischief…
We were on the water for almost an hour before we saw our first dolphins. This is pretty rare – usually we find a few dolphins within 10 or 20 minutes. I thought perhaps there was a dolphin conference out of town, or maybe the typhoon had sent them all into deeper waters. Eventually we found a small group that had skipped the conference and were still hanging around the island. #032 (Atokake) swam up for a good long look. She was moving very slowly and came so close that she almost bumped into me. I say ‘almost’ because a dolphin will really only bump into you if they decided that that is what they want to do. I also watched Atokake swim down to the seafloor and rub herself through a big patch of Tosaka seaweed – giving herself a nice massage.
I expect that the weather will turn pretty nasty either tomorrow or the next day as the typhoon moves closer to this area. That will give me a few days to do some video logs (where I try to ID as many dolphins on video as I can), and also head on up to the school to help out with English classes. I guess it is time to batten down the hatches! Now that is a phrase that is a lot of fun to type… There is not enough 'battening of hatches' these days…. I don’t even know where to get battens. Let’s hope I can survive the storm without them!
-Justin