Thursday began as a beautiful and sunny, though quite breezy, day. We put in a few hours of work and then set off on our dolphin quest as usual. By this time, some clouds had set in and we knew it might mean rain for us out on the water. Sure enough, just an hour after setting out we encountered our first rain storm. After scrambling to protect the equipment that is not waterproof, the rain stopped.
Tag: older content
Double Feature!
Wednesday was another great day on the water for DCP! We started our boat trip by stopping at “The Bimini Road”, a popular snorkeling site, to explore for a bit.
A Great Discussion and Some Crater Feeding
Tuesday was a full day for the DCP Bimini team. The group of international guests had enjoyed our presentation and interactive discussion so much last week that they asked for us to return. We met with them at the Sea Crest Hotel in the morning and answered a variety of questions about dolphins, DCP and a few of the research questions at which the DCP has looked.
How sacred is this heart?
On Saturday, we started with our last dolphin survey. We snorkeled at “3 Sisters,” specifically the big sister, on the way. We saw a butterfly fish, puffer fish, an eel, parrotfish, some of us saw the sea arch through the rock. We weren’t used to the snorkel time before dolphins, so lots of us got sunburned by the end of the trip! We were searching and searching, with the waves increasing, and thought we would go back to shore without dolphins.
“I see it!” “I see it too!” (that’d be the sun!)
On Friday, we had the morning off – we spent the day at the beach and wandered through the straw market. Some of us got a few braids in our hair and we all ordered lunch at CJ’s, the food stall on the beach. Although we were planning to eat at the picnic tables, the flies had us running for the hotel!
In the afternoon, we had a long, good discussion on ecotourism.
Student Interview
Check out this article written by a young
student journalist with The Simpson Street Free Press and featuring an
interview with DCP Director Kathleen Dudzinski: http://www.simpsonstreetfreepress.org/glendale-free-press/animal-watch/dolphins
Day on Land to Solve a Puzzle
Our Thursday morning began with a discussion on interspecies interactions, specifically between the spotteds & the bottlenose of The Bahamas. We covered two articles and Kel went into more details on her work here in Bimini, including watching video clips from earlier this week. It was interesting to see the different observations and conclusions that came out of both studies, and the different approaches to interpreting aggression and sexual behavior, and the overlap of each. Research certainly evolves over time.
During our afternoon break, we went to The Dolphin House.
Thanksgiving in Bimini
Wednesday was as another morning dolphin trip, but in our roughest water yet. It was nearly 3 hours into the trip before we saw our first dolphin – and at first, we couldn’t find it again! But, luckily, we found it again, and wasn’t alone! We watched this group of bottlenose from the boat; the group was fairly large, with at least a dozen individuals at first, and they were very active. We did not have much time, so half of our group got in the water to observe them, unsure if they would stay.
The stings are worth it!
We decided to change our plans a bit due to the uncertain weather forecast and on Tuesday we had an early breakfast and departed on the boat at 9 a.m. By 10 a.m., we were with dolphins! First, we saw about six bottlenose, but they were evasive, so we left them. Soon we saw a group of spotteds and they were soon joined by two bottlenose. Half of us got in the water, but the dolphins were on the move. We popped Dr.
“Bobby! Take Pictures!”
Our Monday began with class time where we discussed studies on group living, pectoral fin rubbing and tool use in dolphins. We also looked over the video and photographs that we collected during Sunday’s dolphin trip. After lunch, we had a rain delay for our boat trip, but thankfully we were able to depart the dock by about 3:30 p.m.
We were hoping that after yesterday’s no-show dolphins, they would make it up to us: and oh, boy they did! But, they made us wait.
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