After a good night's sleep, we woke up at 6:30 ready for breakfast (cereal, fresh figs, cookies, home baked muffins) then left for the boat for the first trip of the team. The staff normally drive to the boat - it's not far, but Joan's excuse is that the equipment is very heavy... - however, the car failed to start so they had to walk too!
Luckily the boat did start! and after a few minutes' preparation we were on our way.
We were starting off with the transect furthest away from Vonitsa, about an hour's journey away. For the last 10 minutes, Joan makes you close your eyes (or at least only look inside the boat) to avoid introducing any biases (eg if you see dolphins half a kilometre from the transect, people are more likely to look in that direction). By the time we reached the transect, the sea was a little rough - not dangerous rough (or even uncomfortable rough), but rough enough to diminish the likelihood of recording good data. So, part way through the transect we gave up on the transect and moved to "ad libitum" - so if we do see dolphins we record less data. The sea became increasingly rough, but eventually we did see dolphins - a group of at least 30! (This is apparently pretty typical at this time of year - it's the mating season so the dolphins are socialising a lot and tend to be harder to find, but in bigger groups when you do find them).
We followed the dolphins for a couple of hours, recording group size data (the number of dolphins in the "focal group", ie the particular dolphins Joan decides to concentrate on) and data on "dolphins in sight" (dolphins a little further away) every 5 minutes on the PDA (handheld computer).
Eventually Joan decided we had collected enough data for one morning, so we returned to Vonitsa for lunch - a quick drink in Remezzo's (still no chocolate milkshakes!) then lunch in the house - leftover pasta, fresh pies and salad. Then we had a couple of hours free time, so we decided to show Claire Vonitsa Castle - great views of the sea (although the castle is under repair so you can't go too far up - the views get better the further you go!). Then another quick trip to Remezzo's - still no chocolate milkshake so we try a mint chocolate chip milkshake - very nice!
From 4pm, we had a quick training session on photo cropping (the first stage of the photo-ID process) then cropped the photos Joan took in the morning. After another short break, Joan gave us a lecture on the project and the research; then it was time for dinner (Malvina's pizza - very yummy!) and bed!
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