Flotsam: Function: nounEtymology: Anglo-French floteson, from Old French floter to float, of Germanic origin; akin to Old English flotian to float, flota ship1 : floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo; broadly : floating debris2 a : a floating population (as of emigrants or castaways) b : an accumulation of miscellaneous stuff
I don’t know the whole story...the beginning was out somewhere in deep offshore water south of the Florida Keys. Some have speculated that the USN and its modern sonar is wreaking havoc with the sensitive sound receptor organs of cetaceans, and the high decibels at extreme frequencies just blow out their navigational tools...others say that human pollution causes infections that disrupt these same organs.
I dunno...honestly. Perhaps dolphins and whales have been beaching for hundreds of thousands of years (most likely scenario). Today there are a lot of people concerned enough to step forward and try to help these beautiful and (apparently) intelligent creatures to survive what would surely otherwise be a death sentence.
A pod of Rough toothed dolphins Steno bradenensis, a deepwater species that rarely comes anywhere near shore or reefs beached near Marathon and were brought to an MMC (Marine Mammal Conservancy) research facility here in Key Largo...they picked a terrible time, as it was the peak of our cold season, and the shallow water was in the high 60’s f...tough on the volunteers that tended to their survival 24 hours a day and tough indeed on these dolphins used to moving with temperature gradients more to their liking...in the stranded pod, a baby as well.
The Marine Mammal Conservancy (an extensive narrative of the entire process is on this website) assembled a group of veterinarians and volunteers to nurse these heretofore poorly understood animals back to a point where they could be released into the wild...here is a link to some photos of that process
I entered the story very late...A woman I work with (Diann) had been working with the dolphins as a volunteer...she did jobs that no one else would volunteer for, and sometimes she did them all night...still coming in to work the office at Horizon Divers every day. She suggested that the boat at Horizon (45’ Corinthian Catamaran) might be available for the release of these dolphins when the time came. After a bit of logistical planning, it was determined that we were the choice boat. Date, location and transportation/support details were hammered out, and April 19 was chosen. We would motor out to 600fsw off Dixie Shoal (Key Largo) and drop all 7 dolphin at once...Our vessel, Cheeca View, and another just like her, the Caribbean Express were loaded at the Horizon Divers dock (MM100 in Key Largo Harbor) for our trek out 24 miles...the weather was beautiful, calm and wave height was below 1 ft.
The dolphins were trucked in and offloaded onto the boats, constantly tended by the vets and teams of handlers spraying them down and monitoring their health and well being...there was a male right in front of the helm looking right at me. He was clearly pissed off and agitated to the point where one of the vets gave him a sedative. Still, there was a look in his eye...
As we motored out, we were escorted by a couple of NOAA Sanctuary vessels, 3 USCG boats, a media helicopter and a NOAA research vessel filled with news media...in some ways, a dog and pony show...in other ways, a deeply moving culmination to months of hard work and dedication to a purely altruistic cause...the cameras brought only the moment of release as these dolphins slipped away...the volunteers on my boat (at least) wept at the sight of “their” dolphins free and healthy, swimming away obviously recovered from their former sickly state.
They are now somewhere North of Puerto Rico...one of the transmitters with which they were fitted has stopped working, but the one on the angry male continues to send tracking info.
And soon, the battery will die...and they’ll be off the radar (the pun is quite intentional)
