The season is coming to a close

 Summary

The weather was terrible for the last 2 days! The ferry was cancelled 3 times, and there were no boat trips. The wind was horrific! It did give me a chance to finish all of the video logs, which is great! But, as I sit here this afternoon, I realize that my field season has just come to a close! I leave Mikura on the 5th, which means I will spend all of tomorrow packing up the gear. Since I didn’t have any boat trips today, that means that my last boat trip was #41 – from a few days ago. Wow! How did that happen so quickly? It is shocking! I will still file a few reports from the field – I have 4 days in Tokyo. I will be giving a presentation on my research to the Tokyo Institute of Technology on the 7th. But as for dolphins…. It’s over!

Here is a quick summary of how things went this season:

No. of Boat trips: 41 trips
No. of minutes on effort: 76 hours, 35 minutes (4,595 min. on the water)
No. minutes of video:    ~736 minutes (or 12 hours and 16 minutes, recorded on 17 videotapes)
No. of sightings: 141
No. of water entries: 266
No. of total dolphins seen for which identity is confirmed: 134

6 new calves were documented this year for the following females: 052, 057, 063, 066, 081 and 145.

And that’s it! My whole season, 2 months of effort, summarized in just 7 lines.

But stayed tuned, there is still more news to come from Mikura! Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Tonight will bring…. A farewell karaoke session!

-Justin