Author Archives: Renee Albertson

Today we did not go our on the boat. We traveled from Ua Pou to Nuku Hiva by plane for the last part of our expedition. Pas de sortie en mer aujourd’hui car nous avons pris l’avion de Ua Pou … Continue reading →

We started out this morning anticipating a 4th consecutive encounter with the melon-headed whales. However, upon arriving at the same location on the NE side of the island, we did not find them or the spinner dolphins that have been … Continue reading →

Although the ocean conditions were rough on the east coast, we decided to find out if the melon-headed whales were in the same place we have found them the last two mornings. They were there, and again a group of … Continue reading →

Bad weather finally caught up with us this morning with heavy rain, wind and swell. Our captain, Marjorie, thought it was “fairly calm” seas in comparison with Marquesas standards, which made us realize how lucky we have been since the … Continue reading →

For our first day on Ua Pou we circumnavigated the island (and Scott Baker joined us! He will be here during our Ua Pou surveys and most of our Nuka Hiva surveys).  We had five encounters with three different species … Continue reading →

Our second day of surveys around Ua Huka began with strong winds and cross swells, and we were not too optimistic. However, after 3 encounters with spinner dolphins along the southern coast, we again found a group of melon-headed whales. … Continue reading →

We have only two short days in Ua Huka, an island with around 3,000 horses (and a human population of only 582), so we were hoping to make the most of it. We were not disappointed. We first encountered a … Continue reading →

We will be on the island of Ua Huka for the next few days doing surveys and collecting data. We will not have internet access on this island, so will update the blog next after arriving in Ua Pou later … Continue reading →

Today the weather was favorable again so we decided to go back to Mohotani to circumnavigate the island, in hopes of finding the melon-headed whales and spinner dolphins and to survey for common bottlenose dolphins or other species. On the … Continue reading →

Today we circumnavigated the island of Hiva Oa entirely in hopes of finding common bottlenose dolphins.  No such luck, but we did have 8 encounters with other species. Three were mixed aggregations of spotted and spinner dolphins, three were just … Continue reading →