40 minutes of video of playful and socializing dolphins.
We waited at the port for a few minutes after a rain squall and watched the clouds leave and the sun arrive. This signaled our departure. It foreshadowed an awesome day. We had MANY dolphins — there were more than 60 dolphins in a large & spread out group. We routinely saw between 5 to 30 dolphins underwater. A large range, but that is what we saw. We saw several mom/calf pairs. Most of the juveniles were in the mood to play. They mimicked our behavior, whistled with bubble streams constantly, clicked on us, and just exuded energy and exuberance. We had 15 entries to observe and record dolphin behavior and communication. I had to change tapes on the boat to capture all the data. At one point, it seemed that Maekake (#033) was watching 4-5 juveniles with no other mom's around. This reminded me of the baby-sitting situations I documented in the Bahamas. It seemed that this was going on here as well. So much data to go through, in fact, I hope to be able to review the video with the researchers here so that I can confirm the ID's of individual dolphins. It makes completing the behavior work that much easier and quicker. Till tomorrow, Kathleen