Tag: older content

Any day we see dolphins is a good day. Here is the summary for Trip #4 for DCP's data collection in our study of the communication and behavior among Atlantic spotted dolphins north of Grand Bahama Island. We had 12 spotted dolphin sightings, 4 bottlenose dolphin sightings and 8 'other' sightings (including several sharks). The number of dolphins in a group per sighting or encounter ranged from 1 to 18. We had 7 encounters and 10 short encounters.

Final packing and prep to return home. It always amazes me how much stuff we can fit into a bag when leaving for a trip (for vacation or other reasons). And how small that same bag has become when trying to repack for the trip home. I am no exception in this predicament. However, everyone managed. John and I had four large pelican cases with gear to check. Clothing provides a great cushion around fragile housings and other gear. Bill and I spoke with Peppie and have the dates for next summer (2002) preliminarily set.

… and the 2001 Field Season. We had a good night and a sky filled with stars. The swell was not great (compared with farther north) and made for easy sleeping. Everyone took a morning snorkel and looked for conch, lobster (season opened 1 August) and anything else living among the grass. Watches continued, of course, with swims rotating around watch times. We hauled anchor at about 10 AM and headed north to search for dolphins. We had a mother/calf pair of bottlenose dolphins come to the bow briefly.

A day filled with sightings, though not exactly what we hoped for The wind and swell increased during the night. Squalls again made their appearance giving the deck a good rinsing. The morning brought numerous whitecaps that covered the sea surface making looking for dolphins difficult. We did a dinghy search trying to locate some dolphins and saw only 2 bottlenose dolphins that were more interested in their morning meal than us. Can't really blame them. One volunteer, John, and Peppie saw distinct splashing at the edge of the ridge nearer to deeper water.

Dolphin Style! … the call assured that everyone was awake and donning gear for a snorkel. Peppie had the dinghy ready so we did not have to stay close to our anchored main vessel. The current was not that strong but having the freedom to go with the dolphins was great. This encounter was with 7 spotted dolphins and lasted for an hour and 5 minutes! A great way to start any day. And, even better, we recognized some of the dolphins. A few were very young juveniles we'd seen earlier this summer.

We resume our trip north. The seas were still rough and at the limit of our ability, safety, and tolerance for entering the water to observe dolphins under water. The morning did not actually 'dawn', rather it seemed to slip into focus through the clouds and flashes of light. We hauled anchor around 10 AM and headed north. Five minutes after the rain stopped we saw dolphins – had them riding our bow. We saw 8 adults including #25 (Spade) and #60 (Sadie). Sadie is very pregnant.

Trip #4 for 2001 Bill Sperling, DCP's Research Associate, arrived on Saturday (8/25/01) to greet the volunteers for our last research trip of this season. John and I were delayed a day for family reasons (my sister's wedding). Luckily we had been able to leave all our gear on the boat and traveled lightly with only three carry-on bags. Everything went smoothly – we even were able to catch an earlier than planned flight to Freeport and meet the boat two hours ahead of schedule at West End.

25 – 31 August 2001 is DCP's last trip for 2001 As with last week, we will be posting our daily updates from Trip #4 at the end of the week. Likely, we will post the updates on or near to 1 September. We do not have access to a phone while out to sea. We appreciate your patience with us with this slight delay in posting our reports. Since my sister is getting married this week, I won't be checking email after posting this note. I will resume email checking and replying in early September.

Report # 16 We had exceptional weather this week with winds less than 3 knots and glassy calm seas; only on Saturday and Sunday the wind speed picked up to 7-10 knots during the survey hours and produced a light chop of 1-2 foot waves. Seven afternoon survey trips were conducted this week and four of these surveys resulted in dolphin sightings. The number of dolphins in the sightings and encounters varied greatly; group sizes ranged from 4-25 individuals and all groups were found to include dolphins of all age classes.

In a word … AWESOME! Here is the summary for this week, Trip #3 for DCP's data collection in our study of the communication and behavior among Atlantic spotted dolphins north of Grand Bahama Island. We had 22 spotted dolphin sightings, 8 bottlenose dolphin sightings and 7 'other' sightings (including a few sharks, the manta ray, boobie bird and a pelican!). The number of dolphins in a group per sighting or encounter ranged from 1 to 39. We had 12 encounters and 14 short encounters (between 30 and 179 seconds long).