Two boat trips, but constant rain means pea-soup ocean – not much to see out there 
IMAGE: Can you find the dolphins in this picture?
Two boat trips again today (must be some kind of record), but the weather has been unlucky. Constant rain for almost 48 hours means that lots of silt and debris is being churned up along the shore line thanks to the water running off the mountain. This meant that in some places, visibility underwater was not more than 2 meters! I could barely see my hand in front of my face, let alone any dolphins. The above picture shows two dolphins swimming away from me – you can just make out their flukes if you have a keen eye. These dolphins could not have been more than 8 feet away, but I could hardly tell they were there!
The thing about dolphins is that they can be really NOISY sometimes. Whistles and chirps and echolocation buzzing in your ear. Today was frustrating because we could hear the dolphins almost every time we got in the water, but we could not see them! With their handy echolocation ability, they can keep tabs on us from far far away, even though they can’t see us with their eyes. Another case of humans being shown up by our delphinid friends. Argh!!
Although I did see something cool today! There were some pretty big waves – especially those crashing close to shore. I watched a group of around 6 dolphins surf the waves into shore and then turn on a dime and leap back through the oncoming waves – maybe 5 or 6 feet out of the water! Quite a sight!
Oh and a note to anyone who wants to visit Mikura – if any article of clothing is left wet for more than 5 minutes on this island, it will grow mold and smell terrible FOREVER! Avoid wearing cotton on this island – your best bet is to wear solely latex. That is the only solution to the mold problem that I can think of…. Maybe I’ll just wear my rubber wetsuit around all day, every day. I wonder if Batman ever considered that… I bet he would have if he lived on Mikura.
-Justin