Close Encounters - In The Wild: Common Dolphins

Every time I have been dolphin-watching in California, I have always seen common dolphins, and they're such a joy to watch. In these two videos, I was going on a watch with my two friends in California, and for the first three quarters of the trip, we had not seen any dolphins, but we did see a gray whale in the harbor. Seeing the whale was quite nice, but the dolphins were something I was longing to see again. The whale/dolphin-watching excursion called Capt. Dave's Dolphin Safari is a favorite of mine since they always seem to manage finding cetaceans on every trip. The new boat they use has special design that allowed people to see the dolphins underwater, and I was very excited to see them in that way.

Close Encounters - In Aquariums: Kasatka, Kalia, and Nakai

It was almost scary interacting with Kasatka for the first time, since she's the matriarch of the pod there. She seemed very interested in my photo book and seemed to like seeing pictures of her daughter, Kalia, who was right under her when I was showing it. At the point when she moves away, I was showing a picture of Corky, and I'm not sure, but I think she was uninterested in that. Her son, Nakai, then comes back (he was very interactive before right before the video was taken) to interact with my friends and I for a few moments, followed by Kasatka and Kalia.

In this video, I was able to interact with Kasatka a bit more, but I only caught the tail-end of the interaction. Then Kalia comes in for a few photos. Kasatka comes by one last time at the end of the video and says hi, (not really, but it looks like it).

A preview of what's to come

To hold you over, here's a picture of me with Buster, a short-beaked common dolphin.

I'm not sure how much traffic I will be getting to this blog, since I have it linked in many different places and I try to inform people when I make new post. Hopefully, they will be curious enough to see what this blog is about. I thought I would whip up a small preview of what I have planned for the next several posts and list the topics that will be discussed. So... here is a list to preview what's to come for this blog in the near future.

• DRU - Dolphin Robotic Unit
• A robotic dolphin and it's implications for research
• Public Aquariums
• The importance of public aquariums and how they impact people
• Education of conservation through video games
• A brief overview of a video game series called 'Endless Ocean' and how it can help people's awareness of marine conservation
• Documentary mini-series about cetaceans
• A dream documentary that would be a scale of something like 'Blue Planet' or 'Life' 
• Web series about aquariums
• A planned, mapped out series I hope to start in 2012 about the aquariums in America
• Evolution of Cetaceans
• A general overview of the history of cetacean evolution and my opinions on recent findings
• Marine Life Art
• This may be a weekly series of photos, drawings, and paintings that I find to share with you, some of which may be my own
• More Closer Encounters
• Like this article, there will be more, of both other people's experiences and my own.

Close Encounters - In The Wild: Baleen Whales

The video above is the type of stuff I dream about. The rush it must feel to touch a 60-100 ton animal. Unfortunately, I haven't had many experiences like that in the wild, and they are few and far between. The closest thing that I have done that I can relate to this video would be whale-watching in southern California off of Dana Point, where I was able to see a blue whale from a very short distance. The breath it took as I watched in amazement made my heart stop. It's incredible that when something that seems so simple as breathing can astound you when coming from a large animal like a blue whale. Though, the experience I had was nothing compared to what this lucky guy saw while kayaking:

The few experiences I have had were breathtaking, but there are many similar experiences that I have had with captive animals, which will be in the next topic of this 'Close Encounters' feature. To close out this short feature, here is a photograph I was able to take of the blue whale fluking while on that whale-watching excursion:

Click to see full size