Marathon follow

Posted by Brett Shanan on September 07, 1999 at 01:02:45:

Friday 27/08/1999
From start to finish we logged 9 and-a-half hours of observation and collected 104 data points - our record! Brett took eight spools of film which works out to 288 photos and we got some video footage. All of this and we did not even use 25 litres of fuel. Come and visit our site at http://www.dolphins.org.za and go to the news section for all the details and photographs. If you cant get there then read the summarised version below.

Our "day-at-work" started at 06:15 when we loaded up the boat and put it in the water. We headed south and after about an hour Brett spotted some dolphins. There were about 7 of them and they were travelling slowly towards the harbour. Although most of the dolphins were not identifiable from the boat, two dolphins were very scarred, possibly big, old males. One of them, Nicodemus, had been seen previously but the other one was new to us and was so big and ugly we called him Jabba. After we'd followed them for an hour and 10 mins, White Tip and Spike joined the group. After we'd been following these dolphins for two hours they finally reached the south breakwater, less than 4 km away - travel was really slow .
At the south breakwater we lost them for about 10 min before Brett spotted them going back the way they had come. This time they travelled much faster, it took them half the time to retrace their "steps" to the place where we first found them. Here they joined a large group of socialising dolphins. There were lots of jumps and spyhops and dolphins swimming upside-down just under the water's surface. This went on for hours (3.75 hours to be exact)!

Watching all of this was fantastic, especially because they were not at all bothered by us and often came quite close to the boat. Just before 15:00 they started travelling toward the harbour again, playing a bit along the way. This time they rounded the south breakwater and entered the harbour. In the northernmost part of the harbour they had spilt up into smaller groups and were widespread, feeding quite intensely. We managed to stay with them for another 45 minutes before they gradually moved out of sight just before the sun went down.

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