What a great year so far, lots of dolphins and some new calves to add to the population, lots of fun shelling, beautiful weather and gorgous sunsets. In the dolphin picture is a mom with her new calf. See the faint vertical stripes on the calf? Those are the markings from where the baby’s skin was creased while inside the mother. 

Also here is a picture and message sent to us from a recent passenger with this cool horse conch that we found at our shell island during our dolphin and shelling cruise.“We truly had a blast! And will definitely be back to see you guys if ever in the area again.  And got some amazing pictures.  You guys were awesome!!!  I attached a couple of pictures of the super cool shell…”

Some recent messages from passengers:

“We had an awesome time! You were the best tour guide! Unfortunately the video I thought I took with the dolphins didn’t work, but I still enjoyed it. Please find the pic of my dad and the sea star attached. We will definitely come back next time we visit. We would love to have our kids experience it! Thanks again. John & Mandy”

“Thank you so much Cristina ! I love the picture !
We now have all our nice shells in the bathroom giving it a tropical flavour (to beat the dreadful weather outside). 
We enjoyed the cruise tremendously,  
Keep the good work, educating people to ecology and teaching them to understand and respect nature and wildlife is essential. 
Cheers, Laurence”

Capt Mike has been really busy with fishing charters and has had a lot of regulars returning for season and a lot of new clients as well. We received this photo from a family that went fishing with Capt Mike last week. Our marine biologist, Cristina, has also been reporting lots of dolphin and now that our water temperature is approaching the 70s, even some manatee sightings. The Ospreys are busy nesting, and she noticed some of our pelicans starting to show their breeding plumage.

We are still having some cool brisk mornings on the water but that hasn’t slowed the dolphins down! They have been very frisky, busy feeding, and playing. As typical here in the winter, the shelling has been fantastic as well. Here are a couple of photos taken by our biologist, Cristina, from some recent dolphin tours. One is of a mother dolphin playing alongside her calf, and the other is of some shells that have been common finds on our morning dolphin/shelling cruises with some live sealife in a jar that Cristina collected during a recent tour to show our passengers. One morning we had about 8 dolphins swimming along both sides and behind our boat, some were jumping clear out of the water. We see dolphins everyday, and to have that many completely surrounding us and interacting was truly spectacular.

Back from another wonderful day on the water. The dolphins were abundant and playful all day long and we spotted many of our resident dolphins out playing and fishing as well. This morning on our coastal sealife and dolphin cruise we had an excellent tide for shelling and our guests found conchs, whelks, sea stars, urchins, sand dollars, and various other shells. Then on the way back to the marina a resident dolphin, Floppy and her calf started chasing our boat and jumping close enough to nearly splash us! In the photo, is one of our guests with a great spot to watch Floppy playing behind the boat.

Well we are finally warming up from a wave of back to back cold fronts. The weather may have made for some chilly boat rides but the front delivered some beautiful shells. Earlier this week and last week we found many whelks, conchs, and tons of other kinds of shells at the beach. Shelling has still been great since. The Erhat family was out with us recently, and their daughter found a beautiful West Indian topsnail, not a common shell we find around here, so that was very special. The dolphins have been abundant and don’t seem to mind the cooler water. The manatees have all been up the rivers warming up as our water temperature on the coast has been around 55 degrees. We are finally getting back to our typical south Florida temps in the upper 70′s!

The Stiles family, from Ohio, joined us recently on our morning shelling and dolphin cruise. It certainly wasnt our typical warm Florida weather but the shelling was fantastic! We had a cool front pass through over this past weekend with temperatures in the 40′s combined with high winds made this cruise a bit chilly! But the wind direction has helped push the water out to give us extremenly low tides allowing for great shelling! The dolphins were abundant as well and seemed to be focused on feeding. In the photo is Mrs Stiles’ daughter with a beautiful Horse Conch that she found on our shelling island. They were a pleasure to have out with us.

One of our recent passengers sent us a link to a video that was taken on their tour with us of dolphins chasing our boat. We are not sure what we enjoyed more from watching the video, the dolphins, or the reactions of our passengers. You can watch the video by clicking this link: Good Time Dolphins

It’s October here and the weather has been AMAZING! We are loving it. Highs in the 80′s and mid to upper 60′s at night. Just lovely. Our marine biologist snapped this pic with her iphone while at our shelling island with a couple of families on our Sealife, Dolphin, and Shelling Cruise. The wildlife has been so abundant, manatees, dolphins, and lots of active baitfish around keeping the birds happy. The water has been crystal clear as you can see in the pic so the shelling has been great as you can find them so easily in the clear water, especially with swim goggles. Even if you are not interested in shells, this is just a fabulous cruise to see lots of wildlife and explore the area and our barrier islands.

What a wonderful morning dolphin and shelling cruise we had. The dolphins were abundant and we even saw a few manatee. We found several sea stars at the island and lots of pretty shells. We received this photo from a family that cruised out with us on a recent tour. In the photo is their daughter Melanie with a spiny sea star, learning about them from our guide Cristina. This cruise was great and we saw so much wildlife.