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This morning was data, email and program development filled. This afternoon, I had to leave the Vicki & Alexis on land as there was only one research space available on the boat. Today’s lesson: patience. We dodged a large rain squall and regularly asked the sun to come out so that we could more easily see the dolphins when they arrived. But, even though that didn’t happen, the dolphins still found us! In the group of four were Juliette (#12), her calf (#93), Tilly (#87) and un-named #91.

Today was a hot one!  We left the harbor right at 1600 and were off to find some dolphins.  The boat ride out was a rather calm one with lots of flying fish to keep us company along the way.  We stopped at 1724 to jump in the water and cool off so we could continue the search.   Sightings in the last few trips have been kind of late so when we hadn’t seen any dolphins by 1800 we weren’t worried.  Then, all of a sudden, right at the bow of the boat a group of 8 dolphins showed up

Today began with a nice talk on the R/V Coral Reef II to a group of very inquisitive middle school students from Chicago on DCP, our goals as an organization, and the local population of Bimini dolphins. After a great talk and lots of good questions we were invited to eat lunch with them and talk more about dolphins and how we got to be in this field of research.

We won’t have a boat trip in Bimini today so we’ll spend the afternoon indoors logging video for IDs and pectoral fin contact.

We’ve been spending our time on land getting lots of data processed, including still photos, general video logging, pec fin contact logging and data entry. After a few days on land, we were ready to be on the boat.

Today started out pretty promising seeing bottlenose dolphins early on in our trip. We saw 2 at 1702 not too far off from shore and Kel got to take some shots of their dorsal fins. After seeing the bottlenose our spirits were lifted and we were on a search for more dolphins. We headed further out and after about an hour and a half of no sightings we decided to take a swim break to cool off and regroup.

Saturday’s dolphin trip was cancelled due to a huge thunderstorm that was headed our way.  Luckily, the storm cleared up and we were able to reschedule for today (Sunday).  It was clear skies and the boat pulled out of the harbor around 1620.  We were out for about an hour and a half without any sightings so we decided to stop for a swim break to cool down.  Everybody jumped in and got recharged for the last hour and a half of the trip.  After a few possible sightings (@1843, 1847, & 1858) it was starting to get dark

Our trip today was full of guests and luckily also full of dolphins. We had our first sighting at 1710 in the distance. As we got closer we realized we had at least 8 bottlenose dolphins. They appeared to be sticking around so at 1716 Vicki hopped in and took some pictures while Kel took… Continue reading Beautiful day with lots of dolphins

We started Wednesday aboard the Shedd Aquarium’s boat, R/V Coral Reef II, where Kel gave a talk to Chicagoland school teachers about DCP, what she’s doing here in Bimini and what DCP hopes to accomplish in the future.  They invited us to stay for lunch and all we had to do in return was talk more about dolphins;