
We both woke before our alarms and were treated to a moon view that was spectacular!
This morning was our last day of data collection, and the sea surface was flat calm even though the underwater visibility was so-so (~3-4 m but silty). There was much dolphin play to be observed this morning! \Ronnie taunted a crab that won the game by escaping into a coral head. There was much dolphin socializing and some speed swims observed at the surface. We also saw Poli and Kami do a joint ventral up pec slap!
After data collection, it was time to clean the gear, dry it and pack it up. Manon did a two-snorkel boat trip that took her to the 1912 wreck on the NE side of the island. The water was clear and the sea calm, even though she only took a few surface photos. 😁
We chatted with Samir and Cindy about research topics at lunch and were treated to a water spout visible behind Bailey’s Key. It was Manon’s first water spout but the view from inside the dining room was not the best!
This was a very productive week with 14 sessions of dolphin observations completed. This yielded roughly 6.5 hours of MVA footage (we had one little snafu with one session), 7 hours of front facing GoPro and 7 hours of back facing GoPro footage. Six sessions with drone video footage (3 hours) collected that also had a surface GoPro (3 hours) recording – to show the advantages and disadvantages of each view point/perspective. This all tallies to 26.5 hours of video data collected during this two-week visit/session. We will be processing data for months to come!
Thank you for joining us. Stay tuned for additional details later this spring when we return to Roatan and also when we have analyses to share.
Cheers
Kathleen & Manon