The Past 3 Weeks

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I can't believe it has been almost 3 weeks since I have updated the blog. We have been working like mad fools! For the past week and a half we have been out on the water almost every day, and before that I was working hard on computer work. By the end of the day I was so tired with everything that I usually went to bed early. Here are my journal entries for the past few weeks. It's going to be long, but hope you enjoy being caught up to date!


Tuesday August 3, 2010

Back to the computers today. Amanda and I worked on the photo ID catalogue for a few hours, then I took over as we had changed some orginazation and it needed a major re-haul. In the early afternoon I went for a pretty long walk on the beach. It was just warm enough to keep me comfortable but the sea breeze kept me from sweating. Once again everyone was out walking their dogs and I snuck a few pat’s in there myself. Back at the house Amanda was making pumpkin squash soup. She took a half of a squash and stuck it in the oven. While that was going on she peeled and cut up a few carrots and onions and sauted them with a bit of olive oil. When the squash was done she removed it from the oven and scraped all the guts out and into a pot. When the carrots and onions were nice and gushy she added those to the squash and mashed it all up. After a few cups of milk, a little bit of spice here and there and a few chopped up basil leaves it was done. With a little bit of garlic bread on the side it was delicious. ☺ Daniele flies in at 7 tomorrow, so I am up early and off to Rockhampton to pick him up.



Wednesday August 4, 2010

I love being early, so we left at 6:30 and got to the airport around 7:15 to wait for Daniele’s flight to land at 7:30. Being early pays off because he was already there waiting for us. Alvaro came with me and we quickly filled him in on all of the stories that happened over the past week. He told us that his flights were all screwed up because his first one leaving Hawaii was cancelled and he has been taking one flight a day for the past few days and sleeping in airports. That’s pretty awful, so we tried to tell the funniest stories first to cheer him up a bit. Got back to the house, and we made crocodile meat that we bought at the farm for lunch. It is a confusing meat with the consistency a mix between fish and chicken. The woman at the farm told me that whatever i cook it with will make the taste, the meat doesn't have a taste of it's own. So I buttered up a bit of bread crumbs, added a bit of spice then dropped the meat (cut into small strips) into that and cooked it in the frying pan. It wasn't delicious, but I liked it. Can't say I would order it at a restaurant though because I guess it is ridiculously expensive. Now to try kangaroo meat which I heard is awesome! After lunch Daniele and I ran some errands, and in the evening dropped Alvaro off at the airport and said goodbye. I have to say sometimes I wanted to kill him with his incessant singing, but I guess i will miss him. We headed back home, made dinner watched a bit of tv then headed to bed.



Friday August 6, 2010
Daniele left early. He had to first go to Rockhampton to talk to CQU about the post-doc position then headed up to Mackay. Amanda and I went to the beach and layed out in the sun reading our books. Went home, did a bit of work then made dinner.



Saturday August 7, 2010
Worked on the catalogue. Amanda and I had orange night for dinner, my favorite ☺. Daniele got back REAL late. Daniele told us that the deal with CQU did eventually go through and he officially starts on Monday. We are going out on the water tomorrow, so instead of finishing the movie we started, we went to bed.


Sunday August 8, 2010
Got up at 6ish and got everything ready then headed out on the water. We were going to head north to Coorio Bay, but the weather was real crappy. It was a gorgeous day though, so Daniele decided we would take a day off and head to the Islands for the day. It took us a bit because the water was extremely choopy and the swells were huge. Reminded me of the first day we got here and went out and I felt a bit sea sick because the water was tossing us around. After a while we got to the Islands. The area where we arrived at first had gorgeous reefs right underneath us and I sat on the bow and looked down into the water and the water was so crystal clear you could see straigt down to the bottom even though we were in about 15 feet of water. We cut south around the outside of the islands even though we were heading right into the wind. Daniele said that on this side of the island we usually see whales, so Amanda and I were really hoping we would. The island was really gorgeous and the beaches were pristine and clean. It must be that people don’t go there as often because the reefs were really shallow and made it hard to get a boat in there. We got around to the ocean side of the islands and the swells were much larger but out of no where a dolphins appeared and started bow riding. I was pretty excited and jumped up on the bow to get a better look. It must have been a bottlenose, but he was going so fast underwater to keep up with us and after a bit he just cut around and went straight down away from the boat. I had a huge smile on my face at this point and after a few minutes of scanning the horizon I saw a whale WAY far off in the distance completely in the air. It had done a full body breach which means that it jumped it’s entire body out of the water and flopped back into the water on its side. I got so excited I jumped up and down and slipped on the deck ☺ I wasn’t really expecting to see anything in the swells we had, so it was awesome not only to see a whale, but a huge breach as well. The law with the whales is that you can’t approach closer than 300 m, so we didn’t head in it’s direction but headed closer to shore and cut along some gorgeous beaches. We were over reefs again and when you looked out of the side of the boat you could see the bottom, the coral and turtles everywhere! We continued north and every once in a while we could see the whale breaching again. He was pretty far offshore so we couldn’t go near him but we started to notice that it was coming closer to shore. We stopped for the boat for a while and watched as it came closer and closer. We were still pretty far away, but you could see that it was just one whale and that it was surrounded by dolphins. It turned out to be a juvenile humpback and after watching it breach and spy hop (when it lifts its head and neck straight up out of the water) for a bit we left him and continued north. Up until now we were just going around Great Keppel Island and we had reached the northern most bit. We decided against going farther north towards the other islands because the waves were picking up, so we stopped at one of the beaches and anchored the beach offshore and swam in. Daniele stayed with the boat at first because the tide went out, but eventually he swam in as well and we walked the beach for a while. We found a tree that all of the many visitors have hung parts of their boats on. There were chunks of wood, buoys, life jackes and other really cool things. It almost reminded me of a tropical Christmas tree of some sort. After a bit we headed back out and went to a few more reefs before heading home.

Back home we cleaned the boat off, got a bit of work done. I had Daniele go over the photo ID catalogue and tell me any changes I had to make. He wants me to change the whole thing around, so for the next week that is my job. It is actually a lot of work because I have to change a lot, more a lot around, do a lot more with the excel spread sheets and a bunch more. It will definitely keep me busy until the next time we head out on the water. Daniele starts at the University tomorrow. Now that he officially works there, he has to go into his office in Rockhampton every day that we are off the water.


Monday August 9, 2010
Today was Daniele’s first day at ‘work’. I got up with him and saw him off to work and then got to work on the photo ID catalogue. I kept myself busy all day, and by the time he came home I was ready to throw the computer out the window ☺ Amanda was kept busy too with all of her work, so by the evening we were both exhausted.



Tuesday August 10, 2010
Woke up early and saw Daniele off to work, he wants me to help Amanda with her stuff because I am making good headway with all of my work. Amanda is technically on an internship while she is down here and that involves having to run her own research project with the help of Daniele. In a past internship she did a project with scaring of the dolphins. She decided to do something similar and will compare our different populations against each other and determine what type of scaring, the percentage of the population with scars and much more. The work that must be done to prepare for all the statistics includes going through all of the catalogues that Daniele has from the past 4 years, dividing the animals into individuals, then into presence (or lack there of) of scaring, area on the body of where the scar is and much more. It is just about as much work as my photo ID catalogue, so whenever I got fed up with my work, I helped her with hers. Daniele also told me that he would be working on paper work all day and that he would be home real late. Around 7 or 8 Amanda and I stopped working and made dinner. Daniele didn’t get home till after 10, so we all talked a bit and then we all headed to bed.

Now that Daniele is at work he has access to much faster internet (aka a speed just about similar to how it is back home, maybe even a bit slower. That’s how behind Australia is). Our GPS can hold 500 waypoints and everytime we see dolphins or Daniele gets a sample we save the waypoint. Unfortunately, the GPS is full so I found a program that you can download to organize the waypoints on your computer. I had Daniele download it onto his computer while he is at Uni, and I was supposed to download the waypoints today, but I forgot so that is one of my tasks for tomorrow.

Wednesday August 11, 2010
Got up early with Daniele once again and saw him off to work. It has been raining cats and dogs for the past few days so I went back to bed a bit to warm up then got back to work doing finishing touches on the work I have been doing. I then tried to get the waypoints off of the gps, but apparently the dumb company has made it near impossible and I can find absolutely no way to get the points off. I was extremely frusterated and about to throw the damn gps out the window. Not really, but I can’t for the life of me understand why a company would provide a program for a PC that you can use to organize said waypoints but not allow for anyway for the waypoints to be taken off the GPS. It makes no sense to me. Anyways, in the early afternoon Amanda and I got out of the house for a bit and by the time we came back it was around 4. We weren’t expecting Daniele home for a bit, but BAM, there he was! He made Rissotto for dinner while I worked on some stuff Amanda had given for me to finish up for her. We talked for quite a bit about random things, then watched a funny movie and headed to bed. Apparently we will be out on the water all weekend, so tomorrow is for finishing up any last things we have to do before then. It was still raining by the end of the day, but the weather tomorrow is supposed to clear up, so some sun will be nice.

Thursday August 12, 2010
Amanda and I spent the day working, as usual. In the afternoon we went for a walk on the beach. It was a gorgeous afternoon so we walked quite a ways. Back at the house, Daniele was already home from Uni with a bunch of new equipment. He was able to get some liquid nintrogen from CQU with which to freeze the biopsy samples, and the equipment was everything that is needed to allow us to use it on the boat. He went through all of the regulations and rules with us. He also said that for the first few weeks we are going to focus on getting sousa samples first as they are the hardest to get. Now that we are collecting samples for the toxicology project we need 10 from sousa and snubfin for Keppel bay (where we are) 10 sousa from Gladstone, a town a few hours south and 10 sousa from Shoalwater Bay, a few hours north. Also, Daniele has wiggle room and the 40 is just a dream, if we get maybe ¾ of that he will be happy as well.

Friday August 13, 2010
We tried heading out today, but after about 2 hours on the water we had to turn home. At the marina Daniele met one of his co-workers and weAt first the seas were calm, and we slowly headed down towards the river. This was our first day using

Saturday August 14, 2010
Headed out earlyyyy, met up with shane. Frusterating morning, trawler, 6 samples, saw huge group of sousa by snubfin point. Headed back, downloaded and entered data, took a nap, grocery shopping.

Sunday August 15, 2010
Amanda’s birthday. Out on the water for the day then went to the islands for a swim. A bit colder than last time and definitely windy, but the beach was gorgeous and the reef went almost to shore and you could see straight down to the bottom. Had fish, calamari and teramisu for dinner, yum!

Monday August 16, 2010
Today we had a great day and we saw tons of dolphins. We left from the marina and went south to the river mouth, but after getting annoyed at the magic dissapearing dolphins we decided to head north to Coorio Bay. On the way we saw a group of bottlenose just milling along and we were able to get 2 samples from them. By the time we got up to Coorio Bay, the weather had picked up a bit and the seas were getting larger. However, I soon saw some huge splashing a bit farther out and upon investigating it we saw a huge (at least 30+) group of spinner dolphins. Spinner almost look like bottlenose but they are much smaller and they are the ones that are best known for bow riding on ships. They love to be aerobatic, whether in the water or out and it was great seeing so many together. Daniele has never seen Spinner this far south, so that was a bonus! We stayed with them for a while and Amanda was able to get plenty of pictures. The water was crystal clear so you could see them far under water even though we were in roughly 20m. I was pretty excited and could have stayed with them all day, but we had to head back at some point to try and get samples from something else. On our way back we saw a decent sized group of dolphins and ended up finding Sousa and Bottlenose together. I guess this is something that although it happens, it is few and far between. Though the sousa are shy, when they spend time with the bottlenose they tend to let the boat closer and we were able to get a sample from them. After the sample we tried to get another one for a bit, but we soon headed in because the day was getting really long. When we got to the marina I realized we had been on the water for 10 hours! I was completely exhausted by the time we got home and after cleaning up for a bit I fell asleep at 4, woke up at 9 and watched a bit of tv, then fell asleep again until 5 in the morning.

Tuesday August 17, 2010
Nice day, 2 samples, lost a dart. Worked on stuff when we got home. Got all the data entered in from the past few days, worked on photo ID with Amanda. Watched the reader, good movie.

Wednesday August 18, 2010
Slept in, might be going to Repulse Bay. Replied to millions of emails, fb stuff and worked on blog. Real tired and have a headache, might have to start drinking a lot more water on boat. Got a call from Daniele saying something happened and we wouldn’t be going north, we would be going out tomorrow. When he got home he was driving a new truck. Apparently when he ran errands earlier in the day the master cylinder on the truck blew and he had to limp home and rent another truck. We did a bit of math and Daniele has our goal as trying to get 4 sousa samples by the end of the weekend because we already have 6. We need 10 for each species (sousa and snubfin) from each of the locations we are in as well as some from bottlenose. We have a decent amount of samples right now, but not enough if we want to get everything done by the end of the season. The good news is that one of the other locations, Gladstone, has very friendly dolphins and Daniele says that he has no problem getting samples from there. Hopefully that holds true for this season when we go down there.

Thursday 19, 2010
We went out from the marina today. It started to get real foggy once we hit the river mouth, so after getting one sample and a few sightings we turned around and went north towards Coorio Bay. While north we saw a few pods of bottlenose dolphins that did not want to cooperate. Daniele eventually got one sample from them, but at first he was going to shake the dart out in the water because he thought he had missed. When I saw the plug inside it really made the day a bit better. If only the were sousa or snubfin samples instead. We started to head back and at that point we saw a humpback whale close to the beack! I wasn’t expecting it at all and was pretty excited. It was in 6m of water, which to me seamed really shallow, but you could tell that it was real young because it wasn’t too big, for a whale that is. When we first saw it, it looked like just another dolphins until I saw it surface and you could see the nostrils and the rest of the body in the water.

Friday 20, 2010
Went out from the marina, really foggy. Daniele said that dolphins are very hard to spot when it is overcast and he even thinks they avoid social behavior in this weather making it much harder to find them. We got down to the river mouth and the fog turned into rain, decided to head in for the day. Tried to go north a bit but saw one group of evasive dolphins and we just gave up. ☹ Daniele went to uni and to pick up the truck which ended up being almost $700! The mechanic also said the truck only has a few months of life left in it which isn’t a good thing to hear. Amanda made pumpkin squash soup for dinner. So simple yet absolutely delicious!

Also, as October is fast approaching and I have to start thinking about what to do next I have been trying to find ways to stay in Australia. Anna, the friend of Daniele’s that came to stay with us last month, and I have been keeping in contact and a friend of hers needed an assistant out in Shark Bay on the western side of Australia. I emailed the girl and had a skype interview with her and her advisor late in the evening. They seemed to like that I have a decent amount of experience and hopefully I will hear back from them soon on whether or not I got the position! I really hope I do because that would keep me hear until December. Also, the project works with mother calf interactions, getting samples from when dolphins blow from their blow hole, and aging different animals. I haven’t had an experience with any of that, and it would be great to see how it is all done.


Saturday 21, 2010
Went out from the river. It was really calm, but still really overcast. We saw a few dolphins today, but they were mainly travelling singularly and it was very difficult to get close to them. Around 12 we gave up and turned in because at this point we were just driving around wasting gas. Back at the house I tried to start the desktop up to enter the data and it gave me tons of trouble. By the time I got it started over 30 minutes later I decided it would be a smart idea to save all of our data on our portable hard drive - just in case. I really don’t feel like going back through everything and doing it all again. Also, if all of the pictures dissapear, then we are shit out of luck and in big trouble! Later in the evening Daniele and I went for a run on the beach then I settled in to get some work done.

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