Wind!
A nasty bit of weather moved in last night; the seas were terrible. There was an intense and constant wind from the Northeast. The waves were tolerable on the west side of the island, so our little boat headed out there this morning. We saw plenty of dolphins! They were playing again in the big waves crashing against the island. They will surf the waves in, and then just seconds before they are dashed against the rocks, they turn and leap back into the oncoming waves. These bottlenose dolphins are not afraid of shallow water obviously. In fact, both Orcas and bottlenose dolphins have been known to chase their prey up onto beaches; a pretty resourceful hunting technique. Unfortunately, there are no beaches on Mikura; just cliffs and rocks. The dolphins were engrossed in their surfing today and had very little time to interact with us humans. They gave us the briefest of glances before shooting off to catch the next big wave. I spent the afternoon doing video ID. In fact, I spent all of yesterday doing ID as well. Dolphins dolphins dolphins! I see dolphins when I close my eyes! I have re-identified almost 100 of the individual dolphins that we see each year here. We’ve got around 160 on record as ‘living’ around Mikura, but usually not more than 120 individuals are re-sighted each year. Right, another trip tomorrow; let’s see who else I spot!
-Justin