Friday, April 16, 2010

Going on a Dolphin Trip

Back on Blackbird Caye, I had a chance to help a dolphin researcher named Izzy. My Mom and I got to go out on a boat while my Dad had to lead a snorkel group. We went out for the afternoon to look for dolphins. Izzy has been working with these dolphins at Turneffe Atoll for years. He often sees the same individuals year after year. He knows because of nicks and scars and patterns that unique to each dolphin and they are much like you own fingerprint. He studies their behavior such as mating, feeding or playing. We saw some dolphins of course. We were lucky that we saw some because they can go a whole day without seeing any dolphins.

It was really cool when the dolphins bow ride. Bow riding is when the boat the pushes a water current forward and it forms a wave with
the dolphins ride. It looks like they are having fun. There was more than one dolphin and they had a baby. Unfortunately that made it so we couldn’t get in the water with them. Izzy thinks that they were playing. I think so too. They were amazing. That’s all for now from the Nudibranch Network……

Tortilla Factory

We found a tortilla factory in Orange Walk, Belize. We wanted to get some tortillas and nacho chips so we went inside. They gave us a corn tortilla fresh out oven. It was the best tortilla I ever had because it was made right there before our eyes. The people there were very busy getting stacks of tortillas and serving many customers. We enjoyed watching this so much that we decided to make a little movie and hope you enjoy it too. The first step is batter making where they grind the dry corn into a pulp. The second step is run the batter through a machine that flattens it and stamps out a circle. Next the tortillas go through a toasting machine which is very quick. Out the other side they come and presto, you have a stack of fresh tortillas. These corn tortillas here are much much better than the ones you get at the store back in home.