Tag: older content

Wednesday’s trip with Bimini Adventures was the fourth day for the guests, and everyone (including us) was eager for dolphins. While the hot sun beat down on us as we set out, some clouds loomed in the distance, and we all tried to ignore the possibility of any incoming storms. Our trip set out at 13:00, to give the guests the opportunity to snorkel at “The Bimini Road” (aka “Atlantis”). Afterwards, we searched and searched for dolphins but it was beginning to feel hopeless.

On Tuesday, Pam and Liana got the opportunity to experience another side of Bimini’s natural world: we joined Bimini Adventures on a trip to Honeymoon Harbor to see and feed sting rays. It was very cool to be able to feed them, especially since it was the first time either of us had ever been with them in the wild or gotten the opportunity to feed them.

Our Monday started all together, swapping photos for future ID’ing, catching up our data processing to-do list and getting an introduction to o-ring maintenance and DCP’s TopDawg camera system. Soon, Kel was out with Bimini Adventures, whose trip began with an extended snorkel stop at “3 Sisters” and lunch onboard the boat. After our snorkel, and with full bellies, we headed in search of dolphins. Once again it was bottlenose dolphins that greeted us, this time, two mother/calf pairs.

Pam & Liana headed out Sunday with Bimini Undersea and their 12 guests, 8 of whom were on earlier trips and eager to see dolphins. It was a clear, beautiful day, eventually reaching glassy-calm surface conditions that allowed us to see straight to the bottom even in depths of 40 feet! We saw some interesting new marine life including a sea turtle, a triggerfish, a cushion star, flying fish, and a barracuda. But it was dolphins we were really after. Soon, we saw at least 11 bottlenose dolphins, including at least one calf.

We set out on “Adventurer” early on Saturday afternoon with a much bigger crowd than yesterday. We had 16 guests onboard, including a family from Switzerland, another family on vacation and some friends of Bimini Undersea. It was a clear day with minimal cloud cover, and the sun was strong. Everyone on the boat seemed optimistic and ready to see some dolphins! At 14:30, Captain Audley saw our first dolphins. It was a group of 4-5 bottlenose that stuck around the boat for almost fifteen minutes.

After a morning of work and play, the Bimini Undersea boat “Adventurer” picked us up at Sea Crest and we were headed on another search for dolphins! It was a little cloudy at first, but soon the cover broke and it became increasingly sunny as the afternoon progressed. We had a small group of guests on board and so there was plenty of space to move around and look for any sign of dolphins.

We started off Tuesday with something we hadn’t done in a while — video! We resumed reviewing Bimini video data and showed Kel some of our tricks for doing the social quality event sampling. It was nice to all be able to do it together, and certainly faster since Kel knows the Bimini spotted dolphins so well! We finished the 2011 video and started on the 2010 tapes.

On Saturday, we got the opportunity to go onboard the Coral Reef II, the research vessel from Shedd Aquarium in Chicago. We talked to an eager, enthusiastic group of K-12 teachers from the US about DCP and our dolphins here in Bimini. Kel covered the basics of what DCP does, the difference between dolphin species, sexes, and the importance of identifying individuals within a population. The group participated and asked great questions.

On Friday it was Kel’s turn to head in search of dolphins with Bimini Adventures. Today’s guests were still glowing from their amazing experiences on Wednesday and although the weather was not as nice today, they were still eager to give it a try (there was a birthday on board after all!). While we headed north, in the lee of Bimini, the seas were quite comfortable. But, as expected, shortly after leaving the protective shoreline, things got rougher.

Wednesday was our first trip on Bimini Adventures’ Dakota, and our second trip was much different than our first. The clouds in the distance as we headed out seemed a bit threatening, but it turned out to be a great day.