They're out there somewhere...

We’ve tried, without success, to contract the dolphins to show up regularly at a set time and place, we’ve offered them unlimited fish and squid, but they obviously value their freedom higher than that. And so we have to head out to the ocean every day in search of one of the pods, armed only with binoculars and a lot of patience. We, as humans, tend to sail above the surface of the sea. Dolphins are more at home beneath the surface. This obviously introduces some difficulties to the process of finding a small group of dolphins in a very large ocean.

Patience and a sharp eye.

22 Sept — Spotting the dolphins involves having one or two crew members standing on the cabin roof armed with binoculars scanning the waves for signs of a dark grey fin, a tail splash or possibly a breach (jump). On a day when the ocean is totally flat one can spot a fin hundreds of meters away, but with any kind of wave motion, trying to spot a small grey fin is difficult. Add to this that a bottlenose dolphin dives for an average of four minutes before surfacing for a breath and going back down, it means that you have to be looking in the right place at just the right time to spot anything. We are helped by the fact that they tend to surface for two or three breaths before going down, and that if there is a small group they will surface at different times (although they often seem to practice synchronised swimming), but it is still a tricky job standing on a boat bouncing over the waves with a pair of binoculars scanning a choppy sea for a sight of dolphin. Spotted dolphins are a little easier as they seem to spend more time on the surface.

A skyscape in blue

So today has been choppy with a good swell as we head further north making balancing pretty tiring and the sea surface is a mess, but apart from that it’s a beautiful day with a nice cool breeze. And Atmo and I are on the cabin top with the binoculars spotting and suddenly Atmo says “there they are, on the bow” and there were a couple of dolphins just off the bow, they took a breath, went back down and, search as we might, not seen again. And that kind of sums up how difficult it is spotting dolphins on this kind of day…

25 Sept — we met up with a dolphin kindergarten today, about a dozen youngsters with a couple of older females watching over them. Like human youngsters, the dolphin young are noisy and squealing and tumbling around each other with loads of energy. They don’t appear too interested in us and, apart from a few curious forays into our midst, are totally involved in their own games. The mothers swim amongst us briefly but are mainly focussed on keeping an eye on their charges. They slowly move off with the current and we return to ship.

A beautiful late afternoon light on the sea.

Full Moon

ajara and veit

In the society I come from, talking to others while wearing sunglasses is kind of frowned upon, usually the preserve of teenagers with an attitude problem. But here in Bimini, where the sun is bright for most of the day, sunglasses are normal. It’s taken me a long while to get used to this, having whole conversations with people and not being able to see their eyes. And myself talking to others while wearing the things. I’m most comfortable with a light shade that can be seen through. I notice it often with newly arrived guests, they feel a bit disconcerted at first, whereas I think most of the crew here are not aware of it as it is normal when living here.

This week has been dominated by the fact that the WildQuest Online Booking system is going live to take bookings for the 2010 season. Arlyne, our mainland organizer in Florida, has flown over for meetings and I’ve been frantically getting the program into shape and towards the end of the week we announce it in the newsletter. I still manage to have three days on the boat, which is great. It feels kind of strange to be sat in front of a computer all day when everyone else is out on the ocean wave, but that’s the reality this week.

North Point of Bimini

In amongst all this last minute frenzy, I’m also supposed to produce the Notes for August, a kind of blank verse poem to accompany pictures and set the tone for the month of August, but I manage that and you can view it on the WildQuest site. The graphics work is all done by Sudi, the webmaster and designer.

Ju, Andrea and Amlas

It’s our final week of Veit and Andrea’s Joy of Life group and we’ve grown very fond of them all. One of the participants this week is a woman with a young boy who is dying from a motor-neuron disease and has no movement at all. We’ve all been taking care of him and supporting him in the water and have been very touched by him.

Bottlenose dolphin

10 Sept — I may have given the impression in the past that bottlenose dolphins are a little stand-offish, not so interested in making friends and playing with us humans, possibly more interested in feeding and procreation than swimming around and I’d like to set the record straight as we’ve just had a lovely time with a small group of said bottlenose, albeit younger members. Much of our dolphin connections here are with Atlantic Spotted dolphins who tend to stay more on the surface, be more acrobatic and patient with us clumsy humans. But today has changed my attitude as we’ve taken the time to become a little better acquainted.

Jumping for joy?

Firstly, they are noticeably larger than the Spotteds and the first time I met up with them today was when I dove a little below the surface and faced three of them heading directly towards me and filling my head with sonar. They veered off to my left to check out the others, which was when I realized how big they were They also seem to move with more of a purpose, as they headed down to the sandy bottom to dig for some fish. They stay down for quite a bit longer than Spotteds and while digging they aren’t particularly interested in playing, but I worked out that if I headed down at about the time they were coming up, then we could meet in the middle and swim around for a bit. And they’d stay up near the surface for a few minutes for a swim as well. So I got the impression of a rather more serious kind of dolphin, with more of a purpose in what it was doing, possibly because of the greater size they were less acrobatic.

Ju, Andrea and Amlas

Porgy Bay Junkanoo

Miguel on watch

Stormy weather

Diving deep

A mixed and varied week of breathless days and storms, hot sun and torrential rain. A fresh influx of Germans replace the outgoing group (except for the dozen that have stayed over for a second week) and a full and juicy group it is. I try my hand at freediving and we all play with the dolphins and go snorkelling at Turtle Rocks.

1 Sep — Yesterday was Monday and was my day off the boat. The sea was mirror flat, hardly a breath of air, conditions which makes it easy to spot a pod of dolphins from a long way off, and the group wasn’t disappointed. They spent a couple of hours swimming with the dolphins and came back blissed out. The crew said it was one of the best days ever… me, I’d spent it sitting at a hot laptop programming… so it goes.

Hanging with the pod

So I was especially happy that today we had similar weather (with some breeze, which was even better) and within an hour had come across a small pod of bottlenose dolphins. Compared to Spotted dolphins, Bottlenose tend to stay down longer and hunt for fish in the sandy bottom and have little interest in people so it was a pleasant surprise to find that these bottlenose, although still into feeding, were curious enough to hang about a bit on their way to the surface. It’s the first time I’ve swum close to bottlenose, and I was surprised how much larger than the spotted dolphins they are. They also stay down much longer than spotted dolphins. But I discovered that if I waited a few minutes while they hunted out a few fish and were nearly ready to come up, then headed on down, they’d come meet me on the way up and we would circle each other a bit and show off and then come up for air. We swam together for about an hour or more and then they moved on.

Ajara meets a dolphin

We moved on further north and stopped by the edge of the ‘trench’, the deep water between Florida and Bimini where the Gulf Stream flows north to Europe. The water is very deep and we dropped down a rope with a weight so that we could practice our free-diving skills. It’s the first time I’ve tried this and went on down to 60 feet (19m) which is my personal best. At that depth I’m pretty much weightless and neutral bouyant and it’s pretty spacy hanging there with the surface way up above and nothing below you.

Just cruising

Next on to the same area where the dolphins were found the day before and we came across the large pod (50 or 60 individuals?) moving slowly SW. We popped in the water and half a dozen stayed to play with us and we were there for a couple of hours. Being spotted dolphins they didn’t spend so much time on the seabed and were more interested in staying on the surface and swimming in amongst us, which is great for those of the group that can’t, or don’t like, to dive down. Everyone could just float. I had a lot of beautiful encounters, especially with one dolphin who I got to examine in great detail. He (or she) seemed content to swim so close to me that I could have nudged him with my nose just by nodding my head. It was a great opportunity just to drift together, and sometimes play the game of “who can swim the tightest circle” (he won of course) which I’ve played with the spotties before. His skin had a lot of scars, presumably from sharks attacks. In fact, once you get real close to the dolphins you can see that they get some rough times. Many of them have chunks missing from their fins, one of these had a massive scar on his side that looked like a shark had taken out a chunk of flesh. Tough life down there. It’s often said that dolphins know two predators: sharks and people. So I’m always amazed that they enjoy swimming with us despite the fact that we decimate their population.

and they still trust us!

Storm clouds picking up light

4 Sept. — today starts with torrential rain and wind, which disappears as quickly as it comes and by 11am it’s looking stormy but with little wind and reasonably flat ocean. Time to head out. But to the north (where we planned on going) the clouds are thickening up and spitting thunder and lightning so we head south to Turtle Rocks, a reef diving site to the south of Bimini. The sea is quite rough but we anchor up and spend an hour or so exploring the area. Its on the edge of the trench and there is the possibility of spotting some sharks and other deep sea fish, but all we saw was a small reef shark and a Southern Ray. I’m still producing yellow gunk from my sinuses, but less of it than before and generally feeling a bit clearer between the eyes.

Wildquest with storm.

Refreshed and cooled off, we decide to head north in search of some dolphs to play with but by the time we reach North Rock it is getting darker out to the east and we make a quick circle round and head back to the dock. On the way back, passing through some heavy rain and strong wind, so we’re all up on the front trampoline dancing to Michael Jackson and whooping away.

Full moon

September 7th is Labor Day in the US and over here in the Bahamas they also celebrate it as the end of the summer, though the celebrations start on the Friday evening and extend on through till the Monday. Despite the feeling that I should be out in a beautiful warm full moon night sampling the local night life, I end up having an early night as usual…

short dive!

This is the second of four weeks of the Life Trust peoples and half of the previous weeks people have stayed over and some leave and some new ones arrive. It’s like being back in Germany with the sound of German around me. We’ve got a young lad, Leo, who decides to shave his head while here. So in minutes he goes from angelic blond hair to shaved cranium, which is a pretty courageous thing to do on holiday. He is now the Man of the Month for September on the Wildquest calendar!

Leo before

and after

24 Aug — Wake up to find the golf cart is not functioning. After trying to charge it up Atmo lifted the seat to find that three of the six batteries have been stolen during the night. Coming after the attempted stealing of the boat it’s a bit of a blow and it’s easy to think that someone is out to get you. But it seems it’s a bit of a coincidence, the police said that it happens now and then and it was probably some crack heads needing some fast money. The next night however they come back and steal two of the three remaining batteries…

Our cart, when it worked.

25 Aug — A windy, slightly stormy day today. We moored off of a reef for some snorkelling and some lunch. The reef was at about 50ft and I dived to the bottom, making it my deepest dive so far. I felt like I could have gone to 60ft. But I’m still getting bright orange gunk out of my nose when I blow it… no pain though so I guess it’s a benign side effect. Later we met up with a pod of Spotted Atlantic dolphins, I suspect the same group that we’d had such a fantastic swim with last Friday. They were in a similar mellow sort of space. I stayed on the boat mostly, but right at the end I dropped in. I was just floating along, mask down, when a couple of dolphins glided into view about two meters below me. We floated along together for a while, moving very slowly and they started rising up and finally surfaced to my right, so I rolled to my right and watched them (as they watched me). They then started moving slowly towards me and I started curving my back to make a slight turn away from them, not to get too close. They tightened their curve, I bent my back more. Until it became clear that they could make a much tighter circle than I could. By now the nearest dolphin was eyeballing me from about 10 inches and I had to flip over as I couldn’t turn any tighter. They both stayed with me, then sort of gave a wiggle as if to say ‘nice try’ and slowly moved on. There were a few others following on behind them and they slowly swam by, quite close, and then off. I realize how intentional the whole dance had been. We’d swam together and then they’d moved over to play a little swimming challenge and then they left. All very gently and with a lot of awareness.

my friends

26 Aug — Wednesday is our night out, when we all head off to South Bimini resort, where they have a surprisingly good restaurant. One of the ‘highlights’ of the evening is karaoke in the bar and Leo (he of the shaved head) is going to perform a Michael Jackson song. He’s good… even tossing in some moon walking on the bar. You can view it on YouTube.

Quiet day at the beach

27 Aug — I get an extra day off of the boat, ostensibly to do some computer work on the website, but in reality I end up fetching the newly arrived golf cart batteries from the customs and setting about installing them, helped by one of the weeks participants, Marius, an interesting guy from Germany. The cart is parked in the hot sun, the job takes us a few hours and it’s hot, hot, hot! I’m not too sure of the wiring so I don’t complete the hook up and leave it to the Czech’s to do the final wiring when they get back from sailing. Which is when we find out that I’ve put the batteries in the wrong way round and that the charger is also blown, although whether that was caused by the batteries being in the wrong way is not clear. I feel a bit silly and we have to borrow a charger while we order a new one from the mainland.

Our neighbours golfcart.

Apres swim snacks

and return to base

Stormy days

The week started off with a couple of tropical storms passing by. Tropical Storm Ana, the first of the season, didn’t quite make it as far as the Bahamas but disintegrated somewhere off the coast of Cuba. The local Bimini weather wasn’t unaffected though and we had the first couple of days with a fair bit of wind and rough seas outside of the shelter of the island. Later in the week we were expecting Hurricane Bill to appear, but he veered north and we got the tail end of him over the next weekend.

This week (and the next three weeks) are facilitated weeks being led by a young German couple, Veit and Andrea Lindau, who are from a group called Life Trust. Some of the participants will be here for two weeks, a few for three weeks, with new ones arriving every Monday. It means we’ll have quite a few people staying over each weekend, which is our ‘time alone’, but in the end it is quite nice to have them there. They respect our space and yet give the place an extended family feel.

Shades of blue

Despite the stormy weather, we still took the boat out, although later than normal, and just went snorkelling on reefs that were in a sheltered area. Wednesday the weather started clearing and we were out for the regular excursion, but no dolphins around. It’s a bit of a stress not sighting dolphins for three days in a row when there are 21 people who are expecting to see some, at least surfing through on the bow wave.

Ready to go!

So it’s with jubilant relief when we meet up with a pod on Thursday, and quite a large pod of spotted dolphins at that. The weather had by now cleared to a light wind and lots of sunshine and a reasonably flat sea and after a reef dive and lunch, we’d headed north past North Rock to see if there were any dolphins interested in meeting up and playing. And there were!

dolphin soup

They were on the move, although they would stop and play for a while, then move on, so we’d clamber back on board and move on as well. It’s a great feeling to finally swim with the dolphins after three days of not sighting one.

Dolphin

So it felt like a bonus when, the next day, we headed out to the same area at the same time and met the same pod. This time they were just hanging out and we got in the water with them and hung out as well for a session that lasted nearly two hours and would have gone on but we needed to get back for dinner.

Humans and dolphins, all mixed.

It was a magical afternoon. Although the pod was maybe two dozen, only about half a dozen stayed to swim with us, but they were so mellow and initmate, swimming right in amongst us, and staying close to the surface, so that many just floated with them while a few dived to dance beneath the surface. Sometimes it’s such a frenzy amongst the human swimmers, chasing dolphins, trying to get close to them, that the silent beauty and grace that they exhibit is missed. And sometimes the frenzy is amongst the dolphins, especially if there are a few younger, more excitable members there. This afternoon though the people were so relaxed and the dolphins too, that we could have floated and swum for hours. But by about 6:30 it was clear that we would have to head on back, so with thanks and gratitude and a promise that we’d be back next week, we got everyone back on board and sailed back to the island.

Everyone was very happy. It had been a perfect afternoon and even the poor swimmers in our group had had a chance to hangout with the dolphins for quite a time.

Time to join the party

22 Aug — So, last night Miguel and Lucia are sleeping on the boat to be awakened at about midnight by the sound of someone climbing on to the boat. They thought it was another of the team until they glimpsed a black face with a handkerchief wrapped around the lower part and realized that something bad was happening. Miguel radioed up to the house and Atmo and Vijan came down to find Sunshine, our little run-about tender, floating off with someone on board. It turned out that two guys (one ran off, the other disappeared swimming) were trying to float the tender out to the channel. It’s all very dramatic and I manage to sleep through the whole thing. Noone knows who the perpetrators are, but over the next couple of days we find out that it is not uncommon and is usually the work of people smugglers (in earlier times it would have been drug runners) who use the boats to run to Florida and then leave them there.

Red sky at night... a warning?

We're watching...

In which we are descended upon by a miscellaneous selection of people, who by the end of the week are all best friends. And then the following week we have the pleasure of Aneeta and Peter Makena (spiritual singers from US/Germany), a couple that I’ve had contact with at various times over the past 30 years. We’ve also got the pleasure of Nipun and Sukhi who are staying on for an extra week to help out with running things, as one of the team has to head back to the mainland for personal reasons.

4th Aug seamans log – lost the forestay today. it actually snapped off at the top while we were unfurling the jib. we had a couple of halyards that we could tie off at the front to keep things in place and fortunately the sea wasn’t too heavy so we made it back in one piece. Then we had to haul down the broken forestay and detach the jib and furling gear

The pod set off

5th Aug seamans log – we’ve got a jerry rigged forestay today (three heavy duty bits of cord tied down hard) and we’re gingerly creeping out the harbour onto the sea… it’s a hot day and perfect weather with just a slight swell and enough breeze to keep us cool.

Miguel, first mate, at the helm

6th Aug seamans log – the winds up a bit on yesterday, the waves are slightly higher. Enough so that we’re just tootling out of the lagoon and around to the Bimini Road for a bit of snorkeling and lunch.

Full Moon

7th Aug seamans log – when the forestay broke, atmo had managed to contact a company that he knew in Ft. Lauderdale who could fix rigging and today they are flying out with a new forestay and the necessary tools to fit it.

11th Aug seamans log – bucketed down with rain last night and morning was cool but completely still and without a slight breeze the temperature soon climbed into the “very hot” zone. We set off across a mirror like bay and out into the ocean and it started raining which was beautifully cool and refreshing and cooled us off. Today we’re heading out to the same area that they’d all seen dolphins yesterday but before we get there we come across a small pod of bottlenose dolphins. We jump in to see if they want to play but they seem to be into digging fish out of the sand on the sea bottom so after a bit we all hop out and decide to move on.

Nipun on watch

One of the more exhausting aspects of crewing on Dolphin Quest is standing lookout on the cabin roof, binoculars in hand, under the burning tropical sun. Having a nice breeze is cooling, but makes it easy to underestimate how much sun you’re getting. And the roof top is damn hot!

Cassie and Ruby

Well, that was a fun week I said. Wait till next week, it’s family week said the others… and so it was with a certain amount of dread that I helped unload half a dozen families on the next Monday. But by the end of the week I’d fallen in love with them all, a great set of families and children and we’d all had a wonderful time and the kids are all spaced out from being with dolphins…

I’m so busy I’m not finding time to keep the blog up to date, so I’ll settle with some pictures for now.

Tropi Rock Resort

I’m sick. Fever and aches and pains. And I’d so much wanted to arrive here and hit the ground running and instead I’m kind of stumbling around… We arrive at about 09:30, have some welcome hugs and catch up on gossip, then go to the room to unpack. I lay down on the bed and pass out, burning hot. At some point in the afternoon the fever breaks and I emerge from the room in time for the 5pm meeting. Saturday’s are a day of cleaning up after the previous weeks participants, and meetings to discuss what needs to happen and how we’re all getting on. So I’ve missed the practical meeting and in the sharing meeting I’m kind of subdued and not a little spaced out. But I’m present enough to get that my jobs will be preparing the lunch buffet and helping out on the boat and in the water to make sure all the participants are happy and safe. And Monday is, if I want, a day that I can have off of the boat. It all sounds pretty easy, even in my post fever state and I look forward to Sunday, which is a general day off for everyone and I intend to spend much of it sleeping and recovering.

Wildquest Resort

On the way here we’d stopped off in Fort Lauderdale for three days, in order to do a bit of beach bumming and a little shopping, of which we did little of either in the end. We did find a wonderful hotel there, the Tropi Rock Resort. RUn by nice folks, a small friendly place with a unique feel, each room being decorated differently. But wandering around doing shopping and stuff, going from 30 degree heat to icy air conditioning and back again really did me in and I ended up with a sore throat.

Monday morning, early start with breakfast, a quick orientation meeting until we get a call from the airport that the plane from Florida has landed with the weeks participants and Amlas is off to pick them up. They’ll get from the airport to Wildquest via Magic Bus and water taxi.
Bimini consists of three islands: North Bimini, South Bimini and East Bimini. East Bimini is uninhabited. South Bimini is where the airport is and a couple of Marinas and attached resorts and lots of mosquitoes. North Bimini is where everyone lives and is separated from South by about 100m of water, for which a water taxi is needed. So, a full journey from airport to Wildquest is a bus/taxi from airport to water, water taxi, and then taxi from Government Dock to Wildquest.

Trop ROck again...

But in this case the folks are being brought up from South Island all the way to WQ’s dock directly in a larger water taxi and we’re all on the dock to welcome everyone. It’s exciting and soon there are 20 or so new participants clambering on to the dock and there is also the weeks supplies to be unloaded and packed into the freezers before they defrost. After the new folks have found their rooms, had a coffee, we all get together in the med room for orientation.

Seagulls

They are mainly here to be with Mirabai Devi, a spiritual teacher. A lovely group of people and we have a great week together and get to swim with lots of dolphins.

Dolphins

I’m also feeling the heat and, looking back, I guess I was having a mild heatstroke. I knew I was a bit spaced out when I jumped in the water with my hat and sunglasses on and tried to put the mask over them!