Week of the 22nd


Advertisement
Australia's flag
Oceania » Australia » Queensland » Yeppoon
August 29th 2010
Published: August 29th 2010
Edit Blog Post

Sunday 22, 2010
Daniele let us sleep in today because the weather was supposed to be crappy and we couldn’t go out on the boat. Amanda and I were both up pretty early though, just staring at the ceiling. It’s annoying when you are ridiculously tired and all you want to do is sleep and your body remembers the wake up call. Soon enough Daniele came in saying that he was going to the marina to check the waves because he wanted to try and go out anyways. When he got back he said it was just too bad and that he was going to head into Uni. Amanda and I laid around for a bit and I had breakfast worked on the blog. We worked on data entry and other things for the rest of the day. I heard back about the position in Shark Bay and unfortunately I lost out to someone with a Masters. I can’t really compete with that, so now just to keep up the search for another position, job or internship.

Monday 23, 2010
Today we had a day off and just sat in catching up on photo ID and other work.

Tuesday 24, 2010
Today when we went out it was extremely foggy and it was frusterating because the dolphins hate fog and we were having a hard time finding them. We first went north towards Coorio Bay because leaving the marina we could see a very thick dark cloud just south. We were able to get a bottlenose sample north by Coorio Bay and after heading back to the marina Daniele decided he wanted to go south. I was pretty tired at this point, but it was still early in the morning, maybe 9ish and off we went. Good thing too, because we ended up getting a Sousa and Snubfin sample while we were down there. I guess it pays to never give up ☺ What we thought was going to be a short day turned out to be almost 10 hours on the water, and on the way back we saw a humpback hanging out close to shore. It was in just about 4 m of water and was on its back slapping it’s fins on the surface of the water. We got a few pictures, and as it seemed to not even notice our presence, we sat back and watched for a bit. Back at the house I fell asleep almost immediately and didn’t wake up until 6 the next morning! Talk about tired. It was definitely what I needed though.

Wednesday 25, 2010
When I woke up this morning from my mini coma I was feeling great and settled in to get a bunch of work done. Tomorrow Daniele’s boss is coming to the house for a meet and greet with Amanda and I and some lunch, so Amanda and I (though we had good intentions) soon gave up on work and turned the very gloomy day into a movie day. We cleaned up a bit later on, did some work and headed to bed.

Thursday 26, 2010
Daniele got up real early and started to make his veggie lasagna for lunch while Amanda and I worked and cleaned the house up a bit. Around noon the man arrived, and we had a real nice lunch. I can’t remember his name, but he was really nice and I could tell that although he was very intelligent he wasn’t the sort to shove it down your throat. After chatting for a while and checking out the boat he headed out to do errands, Daniele left for Uni and Amanda and I settled in to get some work done.

Friday 27,2010
The weather was gorgeous as we headed down towards the marina and I was hoping for a great day! We had 8 sightings of bottlenose, sousa and snubbies which is a good sign. After so many days of awful foggy weather and no dolphins it is nice and relieving. On the 5th sighting I think we met our match dolphin wise. This particular Sousa was all by itself travelling slow towards the river. I tried to get along side of it to line Daniele up, but soon found out that the dolphin was actually much smarter than we gave it credit for. Every now and again when we lost it, I would see a bit of movement behind the boat. Turns out that the dolphin had caught onto our tricks and was actually following us. It must have become fed up with us (and met us on some previous date) because it realized that if it stays close behind the boat and surfaces with a low profile we would have no idea what to do. After this we got fed up and left because there was no way we would be able to get a sample. I have to say though that my respect for them grew just a tad bit.

Soon after that animal we found a larger group of Sousa socializing and foraging. We were able to get one sample, but soon left as their surfacing was too irregular. We found some snubbies but they were also foraging and we decided to leave them after a few attempts. We headed back towards home and found a group of Sousa that were probably the same guys from sighting the previous sighting. They were a group of mothers and juveniles and I watched as the mothers fed the juveniles goofed off, and investigated the boat just enough to tease us without letting us get too close. We stayed for at least an hour and left when we noticed that they were actively avoiding us. At the end of the day daniele said that we would go to dinner because he recently got paid, and what better way to spend money than good food and drink.

Back at the house we all got settled doing data entry and Daniele had to do a meeting on skype so dinner will be postponed.

Saturday 28, 2010
Today was one of the best days we have had in the water in a long time. Originally we thought that the weather was going to be crappy and I was a bit uneasy about going out. It seems that the weather has been too decent for too long and I am just a little suspicious. Apparently Amanda knew we were going to have a great day though, so it was all good. Also, I had a dream where I had a conversation with the dolphins and explained why we need the samples. Apparently in my dream they completely understood, so that’s why I think we had a great day. Anyways, it was really sunny and calm when we left the harbor, and we started looking almost immediately. We didn’t see any dolphins until we were just outside the river mouth and we basically hit jackpot. There was a very large pod of Sousa that were socializing and feeding. We ended up staying with them for over two hours, and after getting fed up with our original pod, we saw two separate pods off farther in the distance. By the time we left, Daniele got 3 samples from the Sousa meaning that we hit our mark. We now have 11 and although they are not all perfect plugs like we wanted, they count. Maybe later in the season if we have time we will try and get a few more samples, but for now we cant be gready. Around an hour and a half into the sighting a bunch of bottlenose showed up, at which the two groups started to socialize and got very rowdy. Then a feeding frenzy started and most of the dolphins were leaping and jumping, it was pretty cool. Around 10 we decided to leave them but soon found that the weather was getting a bit worse and we headed back to see what else we could get. Daniele was able to get a sample from the bottlenose and after trying for a second we left.
It was a good day on the water overall, and a bit of the stress is lifted because we have hit one of our marks. Now, to get the rest of the snubbie samples and then the samples from the other locations! As we didn’t go out to dinner last night, we decided tonight would be the best night as we had something to celebrate! Dinner was delicious as usual and we headed back with Amanda and I have a bit of a sugar rush. The two of us goofed around for a bit before collapsing into bed. I slept like a rock and only woke up when the next door neighbor’s dog decided he saw a fly that scared him and required him to bark for about an hour straight. Ugh, that dog will be the death of me.


Advertisement



Tot: 0.1s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 11; qc: 62; dbt: 0.0553s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1; ; mem: 1.1mb