A warm, sunny beautiful day with a leisurely boat trip. 
Image 1: a ‘swarm’ of dolphins (sub adult males socializing)
Well well, who could ask for more? The sun was shining today. Not a cloud in the sky. The air temperature was warm, but not too hot and not muggy. The water was clear and warm. The waves? What waves! Our boat glided effortlessly along the water’s surface as we were surrounded by dolphins. It was like a dream. Reading through my previous reports concerning enormous waves and seasick passengers seems like a long forgotten nightmare… was it ever that bad out there? 
Image 2: the swarm approaches – 5 dolphins coming at me head on!
In addition to glorious water conditions, I had many other things to smile about:
1. My team won at volleyball AND I managed to spike the ball convincingly
2. I was able to dry a load of laundry WITHOUT mold setting in
3. I impressed a fellow at the local restaurant with my skillful use of chopsticks (he caught me on a good day)
4. I actually managed to phone up one of the captains to ask for a ride on a boat and handled it all exclusively in my terrible Japanese (a first for me)
5. I ate a bowl of smoked eel and actually enjoyed it!
We saw a fair number of mothers with juveniles today, as well as another subadult male group that spent a lot of time ‘ing’-ing each other. Biting, chasing, hitting, slapping, rubbing, petting, mounting, nudging, pushing, jerking, playing, jawing, popping, squawking, squeaking, chirping, whistling, milling, clapping, etc. All the ‘ing’ words could be used to describe today’s bunch.
And to top it all off, it was an afternoon trip so I got to sleep in.
Ho hum, what a day!
-Justin
P.S. I still spent 3 hours processing data…. But if I had started off writing about that, you would have stopped reading ages ago