Dolphins!

We saw more Dolphins this morning! This time they were Bottlenose Dolphins, like Flipper. They're much bigger than Spotted Dolphins, so much so that I questioned whether or not they were Porpoises at first.

Bottlenose Dolphins

The book says they can grow as big as 13 feet! You can tell just how big they really are from the picture below. There were three total, and my guess is that they were all big enough to be males. They sneaked up on us, circled around, looked directly into my eyes, and swam off. At least, that's what we saw them do. They were probably watching us for longer because Jessee, who was on the surface, got to watch them for several minutes. They swam within feet of Dave, one of the divers down with us, and he didn't even notice - you can see him looking at his dive computer in the picture.

Captain Oblivious

Approaching Cautiously

Going up for air.

It's so exciting to see animals like this. They're not all that common in this area (I'm not sure why), so it's really special when we get to see them. It's really different to see mammals than it is to see sharks and other fish. You can tell there's not much "going on upstairs" with fish, but Dolphins are completely different. The way they look at you and move around you really shows their intelligence. They're intriguing to watch (a lot like monkeys, except wetter).

Tonight we're planning to watch The Cove, a documentary about the Japanese Dolphin Slaughter. It sounds interesting, but perhaps not as uplifting as seeing them today was.

Checking Me Out

Jessee poised at the ready in case they returned.

Shipwreck

My recent interest in shipwrecks inspired a little exploratory diving. We have a site here called the "Spanish Chain." Ever since I arrived, I've wondered where the Spanish ship to which that chain was attached ended up. After my first dive at the site, I asked that question. I was interested in the Spanish gold that might have been inside it. The others laughed saying they were pretty sure the ship had just lost one of its anchors. Anyhow, I convinced some others to go with me to explore an area adjacent to it. In the worst case scenario, we'd get to see some terrain we'd never seen before.

Old Planks

Incredibly, we found something! How could it be that people have been diving here for decades and never found this?! Maybe somebody had, but they didn't think much of it. These didn't look like much more than a few boards laying half-buried in the sand. I tried to keep myself from getting too excited, we probably weren't the first to find this and the odds of it being full of Spanish gold are laughable.

We poked around in the rubble and sifted through the sand for a little while and, would you believe it, we found an old coin!!! Treasure! It's stamped with the date 1767. We dug around for as long as our air supply lasted and found two more. We couldn't believe our luck!

Silver Coin

After the dive, I went straight inside and looked up the phone number for the Turks and Caicos museum. I spoke to a lady that promised to have the curator call as soon as possible. I'm waiting now for him to call back.

The Ship's Anchor

By the way, APRIL FOOLS!