Today, my fingers and toes were wrinkled after much time in the water! The morning session was 30 min long but with EXCEPTIONALLY good underwater visibility! It was 5-6 m but very clear. And, there were dolphins greeting me as I entered the water. In fact, they almost barred my entry because they were so close. French loved my fins today and spent ~20 min with one or both fin tips in his mouth! Even after I put my feet in the air, he was back to my fins as soon as they were back into the water. I did my best to ignore him and document other dolphins’ behavior.
A few times it seemed like every other dolphin (24 in total) was watching French and me. Otherwise, the dolphins were all social with each other: Ronnie, Dixon and Vin were rolling all over each other. Mrs. Beasley (Vin’s mom) watched the game and intervened only once or twice.
After breakfast, the DCP team went on the two morning dives while John and I returned to Bailey’s Key to film record some training sessions with Teri. From under water, we recorded Han & Ritchie and Marge & Bailey as they practiced “together-create”. In short, they had to do the same behavior together and it had to be “new”. Very neat stuff … and it was cool to watch them communicate and decide what to do and who would lead.
The afternoon was spent reviewing the video shot in the morning and chatting about dolphin communication. We had a great day!
Tomorrow begins again early … a good thing when the sun rises at about 5:15 AM!
Cheers
Kathleen