Not as exciting as getting documents, but still a milestone in the countdown!!

I looked early this morning....still trying to decide!

It is a great milestone.

I'm thinking I'd like to do the dolphin watch in Moorea.

We did the dolphin watch in Moorea twice. The guide ("Poole"?) is a marine biologist dedicated to preserving dolphins and whales. You will go out in a boat with him and search out the dolphins. When he finds a pod we stay away from them, so they are not disturbed. Close enough to see them, but ...

This is pretty well the opposite of the shark and ray feeding, where they have become completely tame and probably dependent on the tours for food.

The first time we found many dolphins and it was thrilling. The second time we didn't find any, but instead got a lovely tour around Moorea and its spectacular views from the sea. And in either case you will learn a lot about these wonderful creatures. (And will probably give up eating Yellow Fin tuna.)

Even without the dolphins the tour was good, and I was happy to support the work the guide is doing. And if you "get lucky" it will be fabulous. I think I recall that your chances of getting lucky are about 90%.

-- David

David, thank you for your comments. I had heard that Dr. Poole's excursion was very interesting and that he intrudes as little as possible on the dolphins themselves.

Why does this trip inspire you to give up yellow fin? I have given up tuna in general but I'm curious why you say this.

I'll answer that one. Because the large tuna fishermen find the tuna by finding a school of dolphins first, then netting the whole darned thing. The make the claim that they try to get the dolphins out and back in the water, but many of them die.

It's only canned yellow fin you have to shun--the sushi-grade tuna is fished by another method.

MarnaLou --

Yellow fin tuna swim in schools below the surface of the sea, and often have dolphins swimming above them. The commercial fishers aren't trying to catch dolphins, but when they're netting yellow fins inevitably they get some dolphins too. The dolphins die.

Albacore tuna schools behave in a different fashion (I don't remember the details) and when they are caught typically no dolphins are also in the nets.

-- David

Thanks for the information, Wendy and David.