Everyone in the group was EARLY … by 3 min or more … for our trip to Bailey’s Key! This was a delightful first for DCP’s field courses. We added collection of baseline scans for space use data and Kathleen had a good 30 min session while John flew the drone that gave us a unique perspective on the dolphin behavior and interests. Kathleen also had critical advice on her filming skills by Elli. She focused on the second GoPro and MVA!
After data collection at Bailey’s Key, we finished the physiology lecture with Dr. Kanatous, then we practiced ID work watching the morning video, and wrapped up the morning with a sea turtle talk from Jen. The sea turtle talk brought us luck for the afternoon snorkel – we saw a sea turtle and a large nurse shark and several other critters! It was great visibility and an awesome snorkel for our first boat snorkel of the week. After cleaning up, we returned to the classroom to learn about Relationship Quality in Dolphins from Manon.
Dinner was yummy and quiet since most of the other guests were night diving. And, we all saw the ISS as it sped overhead!
Maeley – I loved snorkeling from a boat in the ocean for the first time and seeing the turtle.
Paige – I really like that I got a good video of the sea turtle. I really liked also seeing the International Space Station fly overhead tonight.
Lauren – I enjoyed seeing a parrot fish for the first time.
Daniel – I enjoyed seeing the shark and how energetic the dolphins were this morning.
Bella – The boat snorkel was really cool and I liked seeing turtle.
Gabby – I really liked being able to snorkel through the crevices between coral reef formations.
Sara – Fulfilled my life-long dream of meeting Squirt the turtle and Larry the lobster.
Holly – I enjoyed the boat ride out to the reef and not getting any more burnt today.
Eli – I also enjoyed the boat ride out to the reef.
Nick – I saw two fish fighting over algae – it was really funny.
Olivia – Seeing dolphins every morning is almost better than coffee.
Madi – The strawberry ice cream today after a really good snorkel made for a really great day.
Traci – I enjoyed my first successful snorkel off of a boat and I really enjoyed seeing the sea turtle.
Manon – Thank you, Elli, for making sure Kathleen was doing good work this morning!
Bill – My dive highlight of the day was a free-swimming green moray eel and two spotted eagle rays swimming in formation along the wall.
John – Was another successful day at Dolphin Air!
Shane – Truly was a successful day with Dolphin Air – John and Bill are not easy people to film because they kept changing position and blocking the drone. I tried several times but finally got a shot! (I do not envy John’s job as a cinematographer!) (John and Bill before beginning flight …)
Tomorrow brings us face-to-face with dolphins because we have our encounter and swim with the dolphins. Stay tuned!
Cheers
CSU Rams Mother Flippers (MF-ers)