Tag: older content

On Thursday, we departed the dock early for an extended snorkel stop at “The Bimini Road.” We had some rain to contend with, but soon we were under sunny skies in search of dolphins. We did not have to wait long and were soon observing a group of 15 Atlantic spotted dolphins, including Buster (#04), White Blotch (#29 – and 6 year old calf #94?), Trudy (#57), Tim (#69), Speedy (#78) and un-named #75 .These dolphins began to show less and less interest in us, so we went in search of others.

After squalls cancelled Monday’s boat trip, we were ready for dolphins and sunshine on Tuesday. We didn’t get too much sunshine, but at least we didn’t get rain or thunderstorms. We headed out at 1530 and saw over 20 dolphins at 1722. From the surface we saw Juliette (#12) and her calf, un-named #93, Tina (#14), Lumpy (#15), Lone Star (#56), Trudy (#57), Stefran (#82), un-named #24 and I think Freckles (#15). There was some chasing and playing, especially by the youngsters and some mating by the whole group.

After saying goodbye to the 2010 DCP DRTs, Friday was spent cleaning up and reorganizing. Saturday’s dolphin trip with Nowdla Keefe was a patience tester. By 19:00, we still had not seen any dolphins and many on the boat were giving up hope. But, the crew and I knew better; sometimes the dolphins make us wait and wait and just when we’re ready to give up, there they are! In that spirit, we first saw the dolphins at 19:16. At first, we observed a group of 5 adults, including Buster (#04) and Lumpy (#17).

Happy July! We had a great Thursday that began with a beach clean-up: we filled 3 trash bags in 20 min! In total, we filled 9.5 bags of trash and while we all felt good about removing the trash from the beach, we were also all a bit distressed by the need to have a beach trash clean-up.

We had a very full Wednesday! We visited the Shark Lab and the Nature Trail on South Bimini in the morning and then went dolphin-researching/searching in the afternoon. Liam: Today we saw bottlenose dolphins instead of spotted dolphins and we got to go swimming with them. One had a baby with her and another one had no right pec fin and looked like Nemo, the spotted dolphin.

Our morning began a bit earlier than previous days with breakfast followed by an historic-themed scavenger hunt. We visited the Bimini Museum to learn about Bimini’s history and to find information about the island. It was educational but quite fun. Our afternoon trip was shifted to the south and a voyage to Honeymoon Harbor to swim with sting rays. The sea was a bit rough for a dolphin survey.  Bill: Today, we went swimming with sting rays and we could feed them and it felt like a vacuum on your fingers.

WE SAW DOLPHINS!!! But first, Monday morning included a mangrove tour that lasted about 2.5 hours. We saw many critters and really enjoyed the animals. The afternoon boat trip brought us dolphins! We spent about 1.5 hours watching the dolphins from the boat. We saw 3 dolphins first (Nemo (#78), Leslie (#80) and an un-ID adult) and then our group size grew to 10 individuals. We did not get to swim with the dolphins as they really just wanted to play with the boat.

Sunday was a day filled in the water – lots and lots of water. We learned about the boat this morning and how to safely climb to the bow from the stern. We learned how to slip into the water from the boat and then how to pull ourselves back onto the boat. We did lots of snorkeling – from shore and from the boat. Jack: Liam, Sam, Athan, E and I all made a song about Bimini on the boat while we were searching for dolphins.

Our day began at 3:30 am in Newark, NJ! By 10:45 am, we were waiting to clear Immigration and Customs on Bimini, The Bahamas! The following comments are from our DRT team: Ben: it’s a strange place – they do a lot of things differently than us.

Wednesday’s boat trip began with another round of windy weather. The guests opted to have a nice snorkel stop off the beach, where the waters were calm. As headed toward the “dolphin grounds”, we wondered if we would be lucky enough to see dolphins early, yet again…. Then, there they were! Another large group was surfing the swells. We counted at least 20 dolphins, but the sea conditions made getting an accurate count difficult. There were many calves in the group and at one point, all the calves were suddenly synchrozing porpoising.