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 ABOUTfeatured: 30 Best Snorkeling Blogs Fun Ways to enjoy the caribbeanArchive for the ‘Dolphins + Whales’May 11, 11 Comments Off
Good morning mates, how did you Monday go yesterday?? Mine was fairly quiet other than doing a deep dive down to 130 feet with my co-worker Jonny. The last time Jonny was out diving he said he spotted something that was “small and bright pink”, so curiosity got the best of me and down we both went with the macro yesterday to find this little thing. We went straight down but turns out it was only a single coral polyp about the size of a dime growing on a little chunk of rock, I shot it but not what I was hoping for. The rest of the dive we searched and searched for small things to shoot but in the end I didn’t take many photos, it’s hard to believe I have a photo of just about everything down there from so many years of searching.
This is for my dolphin lovers on the list who patiently wait day after day for me to send them a new photo, and well, today is one of those days. This was taken years ago and I can’t even tell you who it is, so many dolphin babies so little time! I do know this was taken on day three, so this a real newborn baby Bottlenose Dolphin. The Dolphin Academy in Curacao www.dolphin-academy.com has a fantastic breeding program mostly due to our big male named Copan who “get’s around” if you know what I mean. Copan is not a shy man and doesn’t take NO for an answer! He is big, he is fast, he doesn’t drink or smoke and can be observed daily at any given time courting any one of our many lovely females. Yeah we all want Copan’s job! From experience we all now know that if you see Casanova, I mean Copan with any given female and there is more than just fin holding going on, we can expect a newborn in 12 months almost on the hour. These little baby beauties usually pop-out tail first and take their first few days of “first breaths” by launching their whole head and body out of the water as you see here. You can still see three of the fetal fold stripes on it’s cute little back from being folded inside momma’s belly and even the dorsal fin on the back is still not stiff and strong, this takes a few weeks. Oh yeah, Copan is also a celebrity! He was one of the dolphins used in the movie “Flipper”, not the original movie but the re-make with Paul Hogan in the 1996, you can Google it. His name appears at the end of the movie in the credits but good-luck with getting his autograph, I already tried!
Off to play with the sub, see you all again soon, Barry
Apr 23, 11 Comments Off
Hi friends, it’s a sad but happy day here at the Brown house this evening as our little black puppy left to her new home at 10:00 today! The new owner seems to be “as good as they get” and we truly feel lucky that she is going to this new home. That said, I led her out to the waiting car, opened the door, and in she jumped, not knowing this would be the last time she would see this house that is so familiar to her. She really didn’t seem that upset in the car, she was wagging her tail and ready to go on a new adventure, I think that’s when I felt the first tear run down my face! And, as you can imagine it was a hard day wondering how she is doing but hours ago we received a text saying she is doing great and adjusting nicely! We went thru a lot with her in the past two months and she went from scared and sick to fun and healthy, I sure wish we could have kept her! I spent the rest of the day keeping as busy as I could. I started on a new driftwood project and managed to get quite a bit done today, this time I am building a standing four shelf towel rack, our junky metal one is falling apart.
Here is a fun photo of Tela and Pasku out in the open ocean after doing a dive with some customers. The Dolphin Academy www.dolphin-academy.com is one of only three places in the World that has trained dolphins to follow a boat out into the sea, onto a coral reef and participate in underwater encounters with waiting scuba divers. Once the boat arrives (as you see here), the dolphins wait for the trainer who is on scuba to jump in and off they all go to find the divers, it’s so cool!! This is not really an “underwater pet the dolphins thing” either, this is more you watching them and learning and watching as they catch fish, swim back and fourth past you as high speed and use their echo location to explore the reef. Our dolphins also do this whole program, “which can last up to an hour” without being rewarded with fish while underwater, they get fed after the program and once the trainer is back on the boat, cool huh??
Well, I must say it’s too quiet around here without our little black noise maker “who loves to play”, we are sure going to miss her, Have a Happy Easter, Barry
Mar 27, 11 Comment (1)
Good evening everyone, Barry says his dolphin fans have been screaming for another dolphin baby photo, so here we are! This is an old photo from several years ago. This is a brand new little one and quite the shot! There are several fun things I would like to point out to you about baby dolphins. First is; you will see how dark this baby is! Babies are always born pretty dark, and remember Papito, (he is now 6 years old), he was practically black. Well, they are born dark and then over about 2-3 weeks become blotchy as they begin to “sluff their skin” and get a lighter color; more the “normal grey” that we are all used to. You can slightly see the fetal folds on this little one if you look closely. They are the light stripes going from the belly to the back. As the baby is tucked in momma’s tummy they are curled, or folded up; similar if you bend your arm and get a bit of a sunburn, as you open your arm up it looks as if you have a stripe. Well this is what happens to the baby, they are folded up and when they are born, they have these light stripes, called fetal folds. As the baby gets lighter they actually become the same color as those stripes. This little one is right beside the mother’s dorsal fin in the “slip stream”. This helps direct the baby, keeping it safe from any obstacles as well as it is energy saving. Consider if you are driving a car and drafting a larger truck, it is the same thing, you sort of get pulled right along. It usually takes 3-4 weeks before the calf becomes pretty independent and is swimming farther away from momma on its own, but it quickly gets back into this position at any time for both safety and comfort. The baby will be only nursing for many months, usually for 5-20 seconds a couple times an hour, around the clock. At around 6 months they usually begin eating a bit of fish here and there, but will keep nursing for several years. When the female is once again pregnant and far along in the pregnancy, she will begin to break away from her calf (now several years old), in preparation for the new one coming. Well, there you have a few fun facts, hope you like it!
We miss you all, keep in touch, Aimee
Jan 9, 11 Comments Off
Hi there friends, once again it’s Sunday evening and I am sitting here trying hard to tell myself I had a productive weekend but it sure doesn’t feel that way. Saturday went by so fast because of my trip to Playa Ascension and today was just a blur, it’s just not fair, we need more daylight! It’s gets dark here at 6:30 so if we get off work at 5:00 that sure doesn’t leave much time to get out and do something fun! Yeah I know, poor me right?? This morning started out with Aimee not going to work because she was so sick!! And let me tell you, this girl has missed like 4 days in seven years from being sick, it something that rarely happens! She has been in bed all day and there is little I can do to make her feel any better so I am just trying to be quiet and let her rest. I quickly took our dogs for a super fast morning walk and then hustled to the Substation to get my diving gear and camera for a 9:00 dolphin dive with Annie and George. Today I was on a mission in hopes of getting a cover shot for a diving magazine again but one thing after another made the dive very difficult. My goal was and still is to get little Evi (sounds like Avi) a young kid diver to swim along side our dolphin Annie out in the open ocean. Well before we even got in it was overcast and big swells were a rolling in creating a semi-turbulent entry and very rough seas. Normally once your underwater you can ignore all the stuff going on at the surface but not today. Not only did we have that constant surge from the passing waves we had a nice little current and still no sun shine, I think it came out twice during the dive and for just a second. George and Annie arrived right on schedule, that was the best part of the dive, Annie was great! My young diver also did very well, she was cute as a button with all that hair flying around and did just what we asked her to do, we all just need more practice at this and of course the current and conditions didn’t help. Evi was joined by her father Bruce who was behind me the whole time helping with directions and that really helped me a whole lot. The dive lasted around 15-20 minutes, Annie hung out with us most of the time, she is such a fabulous dolphin! So if George has time and is willing, we may give it another try next weekend, maybe the sun will come out to play as well this time!
After the dive I rushed home and loaded up two waiting dogs and took them for an hour walk in the heat of the day. We walked to a nearby secluded beach and we all went for a fun swim, it was super fun and the dogs just loved it! After that I took off down to the glass beach as the big waves were really churning up some great material! I stayed there for around an hour and brought back around 10 to 15 pounds of El-Primo beach glass which we are in the process of packing up to be shipped back to the States. I then went to the grocery store, then for an hour bike ride and finally one last walk with the dogs, I am beat!
I trust you all had a great weekend as well, fill us in on any of your adventures if you have time! Off to bed, Barry
Dec 19, 10 Comments Off
Here’s a very special photo for all the guys out there, this is our one and only Zenzi with her favorite dolphin Annie! This was such a fun photo shoot and not just because of being underwater with a half dressed woman, watching her time after time try and keep that hat on her head was just too funny and I about laughed till I cried! Yep, it’s a job folks, what can I say? Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, thanks for all the support in 2010! Stay tuned for more, Barry Dec 8, 10 Comments Off
Good evening all, we are heading over to some friends for dinner tonight so I am getting this out now. I have had overwhelming requests for dolphin photos in the past weeks and I strongly apologize for not getting something out sooner, I have no excuse! This Is Aimee (trust me) snorkeling with Romeo a few months back when the sun was shining every day! I remember quietly laying on my back in the sand waiting for Aimee to bring the dolphins to me which in the end worked out pretty nice. Dolphins are like any other animal in that if they don’t want to be around people they take off and if you try to follow well, in this case how fast can you swim?? Dolphins can swim at a speed of 25 mph, how many of you could keep up and I don’t mean with your boat either. I remember during this fun swim also that the dolphins would swim down and push on my flashes and then swim off at top speed! They thought it was so much fun but I was afraid they were going to break them and I kept trying to keep them away from them but that turned out to be impossible. People always ask “what’s your favorite thing about being underwater with these animals” and I always tell them, “listening to the noises they make, it’s so cool!. They are constantly talking to each other and probably to me but like other humans I just have a blank look on my face without an answer. The noises they make underwater are unreal and so hi-pitched, it’s a series of chirps, squeals and clicks all produced by air sacks in the melon (forehead) that surround the blowhole. The majority of sounds they produce are above our hearing range.
I had a pretty nice day, I did 2 fun dives with the sub with great clients and spent the rest of the day doing odds and ends. I saw another lionfish at 100 feet today and tomorrow I will pay him another visit.
I better go, take care, Barry
Oct 10, 10 Comments Off
Good morning from Curacao. As of this morning, 10/10/10 will see the dismantling of the Netherlands Antilles, with three of the Dutch Caribbean islands becoming overseas municipalities of the Netherlands. My friend Diane who was born here told me yesterday that the Netherlands Antilles became a country within the Kingdom in 1954. Although actually the geographical name Antilles (the ABC Islands are also known as the Leeward Antilles of the Lesser Antilles) will keep on existing. What I understand is the Curacao government will now be a bit more free to do there own thing but still has the Netherlands watching them, I am having a hard time understanding most of it.
Yesterday we all had to work at the Substation so I apologize to all of you who I had made plans with for the weekend but when work calls we all have to answer. We had two customers at 9:00 and then I left at 11:30 thinking I had the rest of the day off when work called again saying I had to be back in the water by 2:00, so there goes that day. Today also we are on call so again those of you I made plans with I may not be able to meet with you and will try calling again.
Aimee came home sick from work yesterday and spent all day in bed. Again I am shocked at how many of the people I work with are sick right now and have been for the past four weeks. Some friends of ours just got back from Holland and they said on the long 10 hour flight over everyone was sick on board, so I guess it’s easy to see how this stuff spreads. I do remember seeing a bunch of travelers on my last trip wearing masks on the plane, I guess that would help but sure wouldn’t be much fun!
I’m putting Aimee on for a moment so she can better explain today’s photo. Hi guys, Aimee here for just a little information about the fluke. Each dolphin has a different shaped fluke, kind of like how each of our noses is shaped different. With large whales (humpbacks) you can identify individuals by the fluke. You could do so with dolphins also, but it is much harder. Therefore we identify smaller dolphins by their dorsal fins. The smaller dolphins (like bottlenose) swim quickly at the surface and don’t “sound”, that means take long deep dives, as the larger whales do. The tail and the dorsal fin are made up of cartilage and connective tissue, no bones in there. The smaller pectoral fins, the ones on the side of the body are the only fins that have bones. If you take an x-ray of the pectoral fins you have a bone structure similar to our hands. The fluke is also the place where we can draw blood. Going from the center of the tail, at the ridge, there runs a large vein going in a curve to the outside. You can slightly see one on this photo on the right hand side. I’m off to work, hope that helps.
I better go also, have to walk the dogs before I go into work, see you tonight, Barry
Oct 9, 10 Comments Off
Good morning all, I am up and writing to you at 5:00 am on this quiet Saturday morning as we went to a big Birthday party for Dutch on the beach last night. Also I have to work the weekend so I have to take the dogs very early this morning and need to get this done first. Yesterday the sub was back in the water after four to five days of terrible water conditions. The good news yesterday was that I did notice immediately that the water temperature was a bit cooler which will slow the color bleaching down a little bit. I am still planning on doing a dive tomorrow with friends to see the coral bleaching for myself and take as many photos as possible, so be looking for something concerning that Monday morning.
Here’s is a super fun photo for you and a photo which shows why Aimee loves doing what she does so much.
This is called a “jump over”. The trainer will kind of lay on their backs and float with their legs stretched out and with a hand signal and a “toot” on the whistle the dolphins jump over them, it’s pretty cool! Also the dolphins do not build up speed for this they do this jump from a dead stop showing you the power created by those tails or flukes as they are called. This was taken quite a few months ago when Aimee and the Dolphin Academy crew especially Junior were all teaching baby Pasku new behaviors. This smart and cute little dolphin seems to learn faster than any other dolphin anyone has ever seen, he’s just like his smart mother Tela.
Well, all is well here, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and thanks from Aimee and I for all the great support over the years we could not be doing this without all your help.
For those of you who check your mail on the weekends, I will see you tonight, you others I will see you on Monday. Later, Barry
Oct 3, 10 Comments Off
Good evening my weekend friends, did those two days go by fast or what? Geez I need a redo! I had a great morning with the dogs, we did a three hour hike along the North coast. We parked at the Bat Caves at Koral Tabak and walked from there to the entrance of Saint Joris bay where the ocean meets the land. I looked for beach treasures while the girls chased crabs and lizards and of course they never catch anything! We then walked along the coast with the ocean on the right towards Canoa and then finally back to the car, we covered a lot of miles. We had to walk across this area of sharp limestone rock and Inca just didn’t like it, Indi was fine but Inca said no way! So like the good dog owner I am I picked her up and carried her a long ways across this field of rock and she pretty much struggled the whole way scratching up my chest with her nails. Did someone just say “spoiled dog”?, yeah well what can I say! Once home I took off in the rain with my umbrella to the glass beach because waves were coming in from a different angle creating perfect conditions for uncovering new beach glass. Many beach glass collectors know that red is the “Holy Grail” of all colors to find, well here we find that color every time we go there and today I found some big ones. I collected for about an hour then went and picked Aimee up and we returned for another hour of beach glass collecting, it’s just so much fun! We found every color under the rainbow today, red, orange, yellows, greens, blues, pinks, aqua’s, brown and white to name a few and as I have said before this area was once a dump 100 years ago. Our find of the day other than the red chunks were two different crimson red beads, they are incredible! For anyone reading this and wanting to collect the best beach glass on planet Earth you can contact us for guided trips, we usually get folks from the cruise ships and we charge by the day.
Here’s a dolphin photo for my poor dolphin fans that think I have failed them! Please feel free to just ask if there is something you want to see, I will try my best. Here’s a tough question, which dolphin is Pasku??
Off to bed, thanks for writing, Barry
Oct 1, 10 Comments Off
Hi friends, check it out, dolphins and our mini-sub interacting together, honestly these dolphins and the trainers are unbelievable! We had such a fun day of filming with the Discovery Channel folks starting out with this first ever sub/dolphin dive out in the open ocean. Ok the downside to the whole morning was that there was zero sun and the water visibility was terrible and you could hardly see anything but other than that it was great! I started out by holding onto the sub and hitching a ride all the way up to the Dolphin Academy area, that’s about a 7-8 minute ride. Once there I let go and then we all waited for the arrival of Zenzi (dolphin trainer) and our two Superstars, Tela and Pasku. The dolphins showed up right on time and immediately started doing laps around the sub with baby Pasku tucked in close to mommy but after a few minutes of seeing that all was good, he proceeded to do his own thing. The discovery guys were filming away with 3-4 cameras as Zenzi got Tela and Pasku to stop for a brief moment outside the main front window of the sub, it was great! I was asked in the beginning to keep my distance as they didn’t want to see my flashes firing on film so I would wait for a dolphin to pass in front of me as you see here and then shoot, that kind of blocked the flash a bit. Zenzi and the dolphins did great, it has only been about a week since the dolphins first met the sub and they are already getting used to it so that means lots of other cool photos are on the way. The rest of the day was spent helping with the filming. In just an hour they are making a night dive with the sub and Aimee and I will be on the boat that will be hundreds of feet above them, should be a fun night.
See you tomorrow, Barry
Aug 25, 10 Comments Off
Good morning all, after work yesterday I raced home and met a friend for a fast and fun mountain bike ride and then worked on my three weeks of underwater blog photos that I will post for you on my web site when I leave. I am still trying to train a new person at work, progress is slow due to camera problems and bad ocean conditions. I am really worried about leaving for vacation right now as I am the only one really trained to take the sub photos, it’s one of those “it’s not as easy as it looks” kind of things.
Here’s another DSE Dolphin Scuba Encounter photo by request this morning. We always hear guests asking, “do dolphins like to be pet”?? The answer is yes! And listen guys if they didn’t like it they would leave! You can’t make a dolphin do anything they don’t want to do. Like the trainers always tell me, the good behavior is rewarded and the bad is just ignored. I highly recommend any and all of you to come do this Dolphin Scuba Encounter, it’s one of the most fun things I have ever done, you can check it out at www.dolphin-academy.com
I am running a little late already, it’s coral spawning week but don’t know if I will have time to go or not? It rained most of the night which is great as things were starting to really look dry around here. See you tonight, Barry
Aug 13, 10 Comments Off
Good morning everyone, Aimee here. This is a great photo of our Michelle (at the front) doing a program called the DSE (dolphin scuba encounter) with some of our Dolphin Academy team, MC and Papito (yes, we have an employee and a dolphin named Papito). The dolphin is Romeo. In 2007 when I was put in charge of training the 5 new dolphins I was told to train a new program; one that was not a swim, encounter, snorkel or therapy. Tough one. So, we decided to do an underwater encounter on scuba with the dolphins. This would give anyone the opportunity to see the dolphins up close, face to face, get to hear them and their many sounds and learn about the animals in their own world. It took many months to get them used to all the equipment and to be relaxed with all the divers and hands and fins. One of the funniest and toughest things was to teach them to not float up, but to relax and stay close to us, right off of the bottom. Romeo seems to be doing an awesome job! Before we put divers in the water we give them a 20 minute briefing talking about dolphin anatomy; most people don’t think about a dolphin belly button or ears or follicles where they used to have hair! We teach them about sounds and echolocation. Once they are underwater they get to see and feel all these wonderful things right at their fingertips. They also get to participate in an echolocation demonstration. The trainers swims off a bit, sends the dolphin back to one of the guests with a triangle and then the dolphin returns to the trainer. We then put eyecups on the dolphin and ask them to retrieve the triangle from the guest. Everyone gets to not only see the dolphin locate the triangle but gets to hear the echolocation clicks as they are finding it. For me, it is always the highlight of the dive, so cool! Well, we have been doing this program for about 2 years now, but it is a new program for us over at Dolphin Academy. It is just great letting our new colleagues experience such a fun new thing. Barry called so excited yesterday after this dive telling me how great it was and how wonderful Michelle and Romeo were! He just could not stop buzzing about it! That is just awesome. Michelle had never even touched a dolphin before she started working here. You would never know it now! She seems like an old pro who is just a natural with the animals. I am very lucky to have found her. Well, now all you locals who know about this have to come and join us, and you divers from other places, this is just one more “carrot” to get you down here. Come visit!
Busy but fun day ahead, Aimee
Aug 12, 10 Comments Off
Good morning all, we are both waking up after a fairly restless night, it’s so hot here that we have to keep turning the air-co on and off throughout the night, it’s either too hot or too cold! Both of us are felling better and I did do a dive at work yesterday while Aimee had the day off. My day started with going to get my island ID card again and this time it was successful, I only had to stand in line for 2 hours! The rain seems to have stopped, we haven’t had moisture in a week now and I can already see the wild flowers are dying.
Here’s another dolphin photo for my dolphin fans out there and again this is Tela and Pasku! When Pasku is inside the dolphin lagoons with the others he is everywhere and doing everything on his own but out in the open ocean he usually sticks close to momma for security. I have found over the years that photographing dolphins in their natural environment can be very difficult because they move so fast and turn on a dime. Now I am starting to listen for them, when I hear them coming I at least know from what direction and have a better chance of catching them as they speed by.
It’s off to work, see you again tonight, Barry
Aug 11, 10 Comments Off
Hi friends, just checking in like a good boy! Our two South Dakota friends left this morning and I am still waiting to hear how the day went, we sure did enjoy them!! Here’s a fun photo from today’s 10:30 dolphin show. I thought for once I would try something new and walked out on the big boulders along side the ocean and shot in towards the crowd. This is Tela and little Pasku flying high for the crowds and let me tell you they love it! Pasku is just so cute as he tries to duplicate everything his mom is doing and for the most part he is succeeding, he just can’t jump as high yet! I figured if I didn’t get a dolphin photo out soon I would start getting hate mail.
Aimee and I both felt a little better today but not well enough to go for my Tuesday evening bike ride.
I did do a fun dive with the dolphins out in the open ocean this morning in fact it was also with Tela and Pasku, geez, talk about two dolphins that are worth their weight in gold! The dive was great although the visibility wasn’t so hot, I did get a few nice shots and will send them your way sometime in the next few days.
Sorry so short again, there just isn’t enough time to do everything! Bye, Barry
Jul 18, 10 Comments Off
Ihay eoplepay Hat’sway upway? That’s Pig Latin for, Hi people! What’s up?? You may think ”Pig Latin” was just something your grandparents made up, but take a closer look. This pseudo-language is widely known and used by English-speaking people, especially when they want to disguise something they are saying from non-Pig Latin speakers. It was first created in WWII when soldiers wanted to communicate to each other without eavesdropping Germans or Japanese understanding them. Just another tid-bit of pretty much useless but fun information for you all this fine Sunday evening!
Last night we had thunder and lightning and non-stop rain and this morning the island was soaked! I took the dogs for a long “mud walk” this morning but they could have cared less and I think enjoyed it even more than normal!
Very little to report today, I hung around the house just relaxing from my last five days with the sub. I did go for an hour bike ride in the evening but for some reason just wasn’t into it!
This is our semi-new dolphin trainer Roxanne doing a fun Rocket Ride during one of our daily shows. The trainers are getting more and more creative with these lately. A few do the dive like Aimee, some do a back flip and others do the splits or as you see here kind of a fun cheerleading action with a wave, no matter what they do the crowd loves it!
Off to bed, more tomorrow, Barry
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