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Today was such a frustrating day. I got an email from my grandfather the other day, and he told me a little bit of history that sort of involved Repulse bay, a bay near Arlie Beach where I am staying. Well today we went to Rupulse Bay to see if the dolphins may be at a different location. We were up at 5, out of the house at 6 and got to Repulse Bay at 7. The drive to Repulse bay was absolutely gorgeous. We drove through the mountain range that lines Arlie beach, and as it was still morning the fog was sitting in between the mountains making the morning sun all foggy. The country side is dotted with cow fields and fields of sugar cane. On the way, we had our eyes out for kangaroo as they are most active at dusk and dawn. Even though we didn’t see any, the view itself kept me quite occupied. The marina we launched out of is an old abandoned resort area. Driving in you could see villa’s lining the road, but they were fenced off and overgrown with weeds. It is such a shame because they were quite beautiful and had
a gorgeous view of the bay. Upon launching the boat, Katharina and I were cold almost right away and the lack of sun didn’t help. It was pretty windy and cloudy out, so I was a little miserable for the first few hours.
launching out of Arlie Beach is quite nice, because there are many little bays, inlets and islands that we circle in the search for dolphins. Rupulse bay however is pretty wide and open, and the scenery was lacking a bit. After a while we saw a group of around 20 humpback dolphins. It was quite hectic at first because we were trying to get pictures and get the biopsy gun ready and there were dolphins everywhere. They were in about 4-5 pods which means groups, so it was really hard trying to focus on getting pictures of each and at least one sample. Eventually we got one sample, but it took us quite a while and it was quite frustrating. When you shoot the dart gun, the dart goes out, hits the animal and bounces off. If all goes as planned, the dart floats at the surface and we retrieve it with a net. Upon retrieval,
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The dart on the left is the broken one, and on the right is a full dart. The metal piece is what hits the animal and takes a small skin sample. we put it in a plastic baggy and load the gun in hopes of getting another sample. This time, we put the sample in a baggy and tried for a second sample. Unfortunately the second shot did not work as well, and the body of the dart cracked, and the head sunk. The head is what contains the sample, and as the dart hit we were all quite frustrated. Also, at this point the dolphins disappeared, making matters worse. After that sighting we continued north around Rupules bay until we came close to the Whitsunday islands. At this point we crossed south across the bay. I figured it would take just a few minutes but after 45 minutes we finally got across. The dolphin species we are looking for stay close to shore, so we also must stay close to shore when looking for them.
On the other side of the bay we continued north back towards the marina, and soon passed by the marine towards the other side. We soon ran into a pod of snubfin dolphins, the first snubfin I have seen since I arrived. Snubfin have a much smaller dorsal fin and smaller profile so they
are a bit harder to shoot (pictures and biopsy gun) than humpback, but they allow us a bit closer to them. These guys however were foraging, and had spread themselves out very far. One would surface quickly then dip under, and just as we got the boat close to it, another farther away would surface then dive down. I was taking pictures today, and am pretty sure 95% of the pictures are of blurry water. The swells were making the holding and positioning of the shots really difficult, and the fact that the dolphins were either not surfacing, surfacing too far away or not perpendicular to the boat was making my job even harder. The point is to get a nice close shot of the dorsal fin in order to make a fin catalog in order to tell the different animals apart. In south carolina taking the pictures of the fins were so much easier as the dolphins floated at the surface for a while, came very close to the boat, and the area was more sheltered, cutting down on swell size. I was soon extremely frustrated, and at this point Daniele was about to jump into the water and
strangle the dolphins. Apparently when biopsy-ing these animals, the average is 1 sample per day, but I was fed up with the dolphins avoiding us and wanted another. Soon, however, we were all pretty annoyed with the dolphins and after a few more missed shots by both Daniele and Guido we headed in.
For me, the best part about working on a boat is being able to ride the bow on the way in. There were a fair amount of waves by the end of the day, so the ride back was quite fun. At 4:00, when we were heading in the tide had dropped extremely low, and on the way into the marina we could hear the bottom of the boat rubbing against the muddy bottom. It reminded me so much of once in South Carolina when I had to actually jump in the water and walk the boat off of a sand bar using the bow line. Luckily I didn’t have to jump in, and soon enough we had the boat safely on the trailer. On the ride back, Daniele saw an Echidna trying to cross the road, and we pulled over to get a closer look
at him. They are quite cute actually, and look similar to a porcupine. He tried to hide underneath the trailer tire, and they told me that when scared, they either try to dig a hole or hide underthings. Apparently they also can stick their spines into things, so we had to move the trailer quick so as the tire didn't pop. Soon enough he got to the other side and hid under a piece of grass like that would actually hide him from us.
On the ride back, I was amazed at how far the sugar cane fields stretch. Back at home we washed the boat out and went for a jog. It was quite cool by that point, and the path we jog dead ends at the bottom of a rainforest. Its a real nice run, and everyone was out walking their dogs today, so that made it even better for me! Tomorrow we are going out from Arlie beach again, and hopefully there will be dolphins for us to find. Also, the weather is supposed to be extremely windy on the weekend, so the plan is to go diving on Saturday or Sunday, I can’t wait!!
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