On the last day of 1st week, luckiest day for me which we encountered adorable and playful Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphins (Watch video in Part 1), our boat skipper was informed by another fisherman that there was a dead dolphin at few nautical miles away.
Vivian, our coordinator, said that after our line transect has been done, then only we go to look for it. At first what I thought was quite impossible to find a carcass in the middle of ocean as it could be float to anywhere which is unpredictable.
However, as the “luckiest aura” goes on and on, with most assistance from our experienced boat skipper, at last it doesn’t took much time to found something that I never saw before ---
a REAL Dolphin dead body.
I was so shock to realize that the dead dolphin is another Humpback Dolphin which is playful and keen in interacting with people.
The carcass was started to decompose but in a slow manner due to saline water actually preserve it.
The reason was undetermined, but usually the death always related to human activity, either intentionally or unintentionally. Or, it could be the dolphin itself losing orientation which caused it hit by boat (this was only my speculation ya…) but the possibility is low. No matter what, in a conservation value, a dead body is precious as it contributes its body for more anatomy/ identification/ disease research purpose, and the bones can later use for exhibition to let more people know about them. For your info, conservationist would never take the life from an animal to do “conservation”, but we will respect the way it die for a purpose if we encountered one.
Thereafter, we dragged the carcass by encircle it with rope and pull behind the boat. Then, we buried it in a shell island to wait for it decompose completely. We have no proper tools for burying so we only used pail to scoop out the shells and sands. It was almost evening when we finish buried it. I’m glad to see that this dolphin had died meaningfully as it chosen to be seen by us. Thanks also to the fisherman who informed us about that, otherwise we would not purposely look after it.
Rest in peace, Pinkish~
Alright, from here now, below are some “detik-detik” from journey on the boat along the two weeks.
These clever seabirds will fly behind our boat in order to catch fishes easier when the boat creates waves when travel. They have to keep on go down to the water and fly up again to try and try, but I never saw them catch one as they were quick and many fail attempts too.
Usually in the morning, when is off-effort journey (means the line is not included in transect line where no observers are needed), I will go up to the deck on top to enjoy the breeze and nicer view of the estuary and ocean.
When nobody is around, of course I tried to put myself in the image (a.k.a. selfie Muahahaha!). But due to the wind larrr, everytime the shots are so ugly… My hair are like lions!!!
So, at last I chose to wear sunglass to show more of my cool-ness (wakakaka!!!)
Let me introduce, this is our “Nature-feel Toilet”. Yes, you are right, once we loose the canvass, guys can just stand behind the canvass and pee as you like, while girls have to made it with a pail. A memorable experience indeed as first day I was still very shy to just pee like that.
** Oh ya, remember to only pee when the boat is stop. Otherwise if its still moving, either your urine will splash to your pants/ face, or you will fell into the water… Hahahaha!
Yes, our urine go into here. The largest “Tempat Perkumuhan”.
Fisherman are everywhere and I need to record down their boat type as accordance to type of fishing activities. E.g. Those in the pic are cockle boat where they are using a long stick with basket to scoop the sediments with the cockles.
Fish Hatchery – usually near to the port or estuary to avoid strong waves.
Nice sky huh if the weather is good.
Don’t burn yourself, birdy~
Have you put on lotion, birdy?
Bird singing: ~I wanna be free~ 
Dolphins are most easily spotted in estuary because the water condition is calm.
So, any movement on the water surface is easily detectable.
Sunset moment also quite attractive when sometime our survey is finish late. The ripples and wavelets are gold in colour.
Matang is well know as the Best Managed Mangrove Forest in the world, but now I know it’s a Home Sweet Home for dolphins as well~ ^^
I realize that this post is quite hard for me to organize what to write as the journey was so new and exciting for me. I guess a lot of unwritten things I could just save it in my own brain memory.
Lastly, thousand thanks to Vivian (Center), Jol Ern (Left), Anna (Right) and boat skipper, Mr. Ng (2nd from right) for teaching me a lot of stuffs and giving me opportunity to participate in this wonderful journey.
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I think sooner or later,
I could not remember all that happened along this journey,
but one thing for sure that I would never forget,
the Best Part of it ---
摘取《爸爸去哪儿》第二季的字幕：
第一次如此清晰地观察野生海豚，优雅自由地跳跃，唯美流动的线条。
它们是：
DOLPHINS
海上的 精 灵
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