North bay dolphin survey:

This morning we departed from Moss Landing Harbor and headed North with Sean, Andy, Nick, Ashley and myself aboard the Astirix. For the past couple of weeks, we’ve had poor luck in the north part of Monterey Bay, at least in the dolphin department. It could be the greater amount of boat traffic between Moss Landing and Santa Cruz, or they could utilized this area later in the day, or in the evening when the seas are usually too unfriendly to conduct a survey. Anyways, we still have to go north because it is important to determine where the volunteers are not. Also, we may find that the dolphins that we do encounter in the northern part of the bay are different individuals or that the dolphins display different behaviors in this area.

I’ll have to look at our data to confirm my hunch, but it seems that whenever we depart north, we motor all the way up to the cement ship, past Manresea Beach, and don’t encounter dolphins until we are almost back to Moss Landing Harbor, passing Pajaro Dunes and the north part of Moss Landing State Beach for the second time. Sure enough, that’s what happened today. After collecting lots of balloons on the water, Andy was the first to spot ourdolphins today (HE BEAT SEAN!), and we saw around eight individuals. Ashley kept track of our position and dolphin behavior on the survey log, while Andy and Nick observed the bowriders. I got a few good shots of Joker and her calf, the mom of the lesioned calf and some excellent photos of Octagon.