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Why can’t we just tow stranded whales and dolphins back out to sea?

<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/vanessa-pirotta-873986">Vanessa Pirotta</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/macquarie-university-1174">Macquarie University</a></em></p> <p>On Tuesday night, a pod of almost 100 long-finned pilot whales stranded itself on a beach on Western Australia’s south coast. Over the course of Wednesday, more than 100 parks and wildlife staff and 250 registered volunteers worked tirelessly to try to keep alive the 45 animals surviving the night.</p> <p>They used small boats and surf skis to try to get the pilot whales into deeper water. Volunteers helped keep the animals’ blowholes above water to prevent them drowning, and poured water on them to cool them down.</p> <p>Our rescue efforts were, sadly, unsuccessful. The animals (actually large ocean-going dolphins) able to be towed or helped out to deeper water turned around and stranded themselves again, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=228337910167574&amp;ref=sharing">further down the beach</a>. Sadly, they had to be euthanised.</p> <p>Unfortunately, towing whales and dolphins is not simple. It can work and work well, as we saw in Tasmania last year, when dozens of pilot whales were rescued. But rescuers have to have good conditions and a fair dash of luck for it to succeed.</p> <h2>Rescuing beached whales is hard</h2> <p>When we try to rescue stranded whales and dolphins, the goal is to get them off the sandbars or beach, and back into deep water.</p> <p>Why is it so difficult? Consider the problem. First, you have to know that a pod has beached itself. Then, you have to be able to get there in time, with people skilled in wildlife rescue.</p> <p>These animals are generally too big and heavy to rely on muscle power alone. To get them out far enough, you need boats and sometimes tractors. That means the sea conditions and the slope of the beach have to be suitable.</p> <p>Often, one of the first things rescuers might do is look for those individuals who might be good candidates to be refloated. Generally, these are individuals still alive, and not completely exhausted.</p> <p>If rescuers have boats and good conditions, they may use slings. The boats need to be able to tow the animals well out to sea.</p> <p>Trained people must always be there to oversee the operation. That’s because these large, stressed animals could seriously injure humans just by moving their bodies on the beach.</p> <p>There are extra challenges. Dolphins and whales are slippery and extremely heavy. Long-finned pilot whales can weigh up to 2.3 tonnes. They may have never seen humans before and won’t necessarily know humans are there to help.</p> <p>They’re out of their element, under the sun and extremely stressed. Out of the water, their sheer weight begins to crush their organs. They can also become sunburnt. Because they are so efficient at keeping a comfortable temperature in the sea, they can overheat and die on land. Often, as we saw yesterday, they can’t always keep themselves upright in the shallow water.</p> <p>And to add to the problem, pilot whales are highly social. They want to be with each other. If you tow a single animal back out to sea, it may try to get back to its family and friends or remain disorientated and strand once again.</p> <p>Because of these reasons – and probably others – it wasn’t possible to save the pilot whales yesterday. Those that didn’t die naturally were euthanised to minimise their suffering.</p> <h2>Successful rescues do happen</h2> <p>Despite the remarkable effort from authorities and local communities, we couldn’t save this pod. Every single person working around the clock to help these animals did an amazing job, from experts to volunteers in the cold water to those making cups of tea.</p> <p>But sometimes, we get luckier. Last year, 230 pilot whales beached themselves at Macquarie Harbour, on Tasmania’s west coast. By the time rescuers could get there, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/sep/27/44-pilot-whales-rescued-and-returned-to-sea-after-mass-stranding-at-tasmanian-beach">most were dead</a>. But dozens were still alive. This time, conditions were different and towing worked.</p> <p>Rescuers were able to bring boats close to shore. Surviving pilot whales were helped into a sling, and then the boat took them far out to sea. Taking them to the same location prevented them from beaching again.</p> <h2>Every stranding lets us learn more</h2> <p>Unfortunately, we don’t really know why whales and dolphins strand at all. Has something gone wrong with how toothed whales and dolphins navigate? Are they following a sick leader? Are human-made undersea sounds making it too loud? Are they avoiding predators such as killer whales? We don’t know.</p> <p>We do know there are stranding hotspots. Macquarie Harbour is one. In 2020, it was the site of one of the worst-ever strandings, with up to 470 pilot whales stranded. Authorities were able to save 94, drawing on trained <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/25/death-at-hells-gates-rescuers-witness-tragic-end-for-hundreds-of-pilot-whales-on-australian-coast">rescue experts</a>.</p> <p>We will need more research to find out why they do this. What we do know suggests navigational problems play a role.</p> <p>That’s because we can divide whales and dolphins into two types: toothed and toothless. Whales and dolphins with teeth – such as pilot whales – appear to beach a lot more. These animals use echolocation (biological sonar) to find prey with high-pitched clicks bouncing off objects. But toothless baleen whales like humpbacks (there are no dolphins with baleen) don’t use this technique. They use low-frequency sounds, but to communicate, not hunt.</p> <p>So – it is possible to save beached whales and dolphins. But it’s not as easy as towing them straight back to sea, alas.</p> <p><em>The Conversation thanks 10-year-old reader Grace Thornton from Canberra for suggesting the question that gave rise to this article.</em><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210544/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/vanessa-pirotta-873986">Vanessa Pirotta</a>, Postdoctoral Researcher and Wildlife Scientist, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/macquarie-university-1174">Macquarie University</a></em></p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty </em><em>Images </em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-cant-we-just-tow-stranded-whales-and-dolphins-back-out-to-sea-210544">original article</a>.</em></p>

Travel Trouble

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Playing the flute brings dolphins jumping

<div class="copy"> <p>Want to increase your chances of spotting dolphins? Playing the flute might be your best bet.</p> <p>A group of musicians from the Australian National University has been experimenting with musical instruments and sounds that get a reaction out of bottlenose dolphins.</p> <p>“Through maybe 25 years of experience, I always notice that if you want a good encounter with dolphins, you sing, or you play an instrument,” says Olivia de Bergerac, a Sydney-based consultant who was involved in the expedition. “But this is the first time we’re doing it scientifically.”</p> <p>In December, de Bergerac and the ANU musicians took a boat out from Port Stephens, in NSW, and gave the dolphins a concert.</p> <p>They played flute, piccolo, and the Indian wooden recorder, along with some soprano singing. A hydrophone at the base of the boat recorded the dolphin pod’s responses.</p> <div style="position: relative; display: block; max-width: 100%;"> <div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="position: absolute; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%;" src="https://players.brightcove.net/5483960636001/HJH3i8Guf_default/index.html?videoId=6298017644001" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div> </div> <p class="caption">Walker playing <em>Pan and the Birds </em>to the dolphins.</p> <p>Flautist Sally Walker, a lecturer at ANU, says that she and de Bergerac had been thinking about trying this for over a decade.</p> <p>“With the misfortune or fortune of my concerts being cancelled last year and most of the year before with COVID, there was time to do this,” says Walker.</p> <p>“And of course, it was a completely COVID-safe concert experience because I was playing in the open air and to underwater mammals.”</p> <p>Walker says that music she loved, rather than “technically dazzling” music, was this thing that caught the dolphins’ attention.</p> <p>“I tried to play my favourite music, which is Bach, I played some Telemann, some Vivaldi. They really responded to the Bach, I noticed,” says Walker.</p> <p>When Walker tried <em>Pan and the Birds,</em> by French composer Jules Moquet, the pod decided to follow the boat along.</p> <p>“This is a pod of bottlenose dolphins that normally belong in the bay of Port Stephens, and they’d followed us out to sea. And then we stopped the boat, and played them that movement, […] and they actually came right up to the boat,” says Walker.</p> <p>“It was magical, because they followed us, and usually they don’t go out like that,” says de Bergerac.</p> <div style="position: relative; display: block; max-width: 100%;"> <div style="padding-top: 56.25%;"><iframe style="position: absolute; top: 0px; right: 0px; bottom: 0px; left: 0px; width: 100%; height: 100%;" src="https://players.brightcove.net/5483960636001/HJH3i8Guf_default/index.html?videoId=6298017948001" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div> </div> <p class="caption">The hydrophone recording with the dolphin sounds.</p> <p>De Bergerac says that some groups of Indigenous Australians used music and sound to communicate with dolphins. There’s a long history of <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.2752/089279302786992694" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">cooperative fishing</a> between some Aboriginal Australians and dolphins in eastern Australia.</p> <p>“So it’s not new, but it’s the first time with a university we’re studying the flute and the response of the dolphins.”</p> <p>Dolphins can hear a much broader range of sounds than humans, particularly at higher frequencies.</p> <p>“It’s also a way for them to scan things. The sound bounces back, and they get a hologram in their melon, in their forehead,” says de Bergerac. The melon is a mass of tissue that assists with echolocation.</p> <p>Walker says that while the dolphins were a massive boon, playing flute on a boat is not an easy task.</p> <p>“There were two main problems. The first is salt corrodes silver very, very badly. So I didn’t dare play my professional flute on the boat. I was playing a student model flute that wasn’t really in great condition, so if it got damaged in any way, it would be okay.”</p> <p>The second problem was the strength of the wind – always a risk outdoors, but higher on boats.</p> <p>“The wind can blow at an angle where it’s actually blowing into your flute,” Walker says. “And that sounds very weird, I feel the sound blow right back into my face. […] I think there’s no solution for that because I can’t control the winds.”</p> <p>The musicians are planning another boat journey in April, when they’ll try listening to the dolphin chorus over the hydrophone as they play.</p> <p>“Next time we go out, Sally’s going to play, but she’s going to hear the dolphin sounds and she’s going to have a little improvisation session with them,” says de Bergerac.</p> <p>“That opens up all kinds of interesting areas,” says Walker.</p> <p><em>Image credits: Getty Images </em></p> <p><em><!-- Start of tracking content syndication. Please do not remove this section as it allows us to keep track of republished articles --> <img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="opacity: 0; height: 1px!important; width: 1px!important; border: 0!important; position: absolute!important; z-index: -1!important;" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=182757&amp;title=Playing+the+flute+brings+dolphins+jumping" width="1" height="1" data-spai-target="src" data-spai-orig="" data-spai-exclude="nocdn" /> <!-- End of tracking content syndication --></em></div> <div id="contributors"> <p><em>This article was originally published on <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/nature/marine-life/dolphins-flute-music/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cosmosmagazine.com</a> and was written by Ellen Phiddian. </em></p> </div>

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Whales and dolphins found in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch for the first time

<p>Scientific research doesn’t usually mean being strapped in a harness by the open paratroop doors of a Vietnam-war-era Hercules plane. But that’s the situation I found myself in several years ago, the result of which has just been <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12526-019-00952-0">published</a> in the journal Marine Biodiversity.</p> <p>As part of the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlIXcq2ijZQ">Ocean Cleanup’s Aerial Expedition</a>, I was coordinating a visual survey team assessing the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world: the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.</p> <p>When the aircraft’s doors opened in front of me over the Pacific Ocean for the first time, my heart jumped into my throat. Not because I was looking 400m straight down to the wild sea below as it passed at 260km per hour, but because of what I saw.</p> <p>This was one of the most remote regions of the Pacific Ocean, and the amount of floating plastic nets, ropes, containers and who-knows-what below was mind-boggling.</p> <p>However, it wasn’t just debris down there. For the first time, we found proof of <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12526-019-00952-0">whales and dolphins in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch</a>, which means it’s highly likely they are eating or getting tangled in the huge amount of plastic in the area.</p> <p><strong>The Great Pacific Garbage Patch</strong></p> <p>The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is said to be the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world. It is located between Hawaii and California, where huge ocean currents meet to form the North Pacific subtropical gyre. An estimated <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5864935/">80,000 tonnes of plastic</a> are floating in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.</p> <p>Our overall project was overseen and led by The Ocean Cleanup’s founder Boyan Slat and then-chief scientist Julia Reisser. We conducted two visual survey flights, each taking an entire day to travel from San Francisco’s Moffett Airfield, survey for around two hours, and travel home. Along with our visual observations, the aircraft was fitted with a range of sensors, including a short-wave infrared imager, a Lidar system (which uses the pulse from lasers to map objects on land or at sea), and a high-resolution camera.</p> <p>Both visual and technical surveys found whales and dolphins, including sperm and beaked whales and their young calves. This is the first direct evidence of whales and dolphins in the heart of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296602/original/file-20191011-188797-8wu2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/296602/original/file-20191011-188797-8wu2a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="" /></a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><em> <span class="caption">Mating green turtles in a sea of plastics.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">photo by Chandra P. Salgado Kent</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></em></p> <p>Plastics in the ocean are a growing problem for marine life. Many species can mistake plastics for food, consume them accidentally along with their prey or simply eat fish that have themselves eaten plastic.</p> <p>Both beaked and sperm whales have been recently found with heavy plastic loads in their stomachs. In the Philippines, a <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47608949">dying beaked whale</a> was found with 40kg of plastic in its stomach, and in Indonesia, a dead <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mammals/s/sperm-whale/">sperm whale</a> washed ashore with 115 drinking cups, 25 plastic bags, plastic bottles, two flip-flops, and more than 1,000 pieces of string in its stomach.</p> <p><strong>The danger of ghost nets</strong></p> <p>The most common debris we were able to identify by eye was discarded or lost fishing nets, often called “ghost nets”. Ghost nets can drift in the ocean for years, trapping animals and causing injuries, starvation and death.</p> <p style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297849/original/file-20191021-56220-k3ttsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/297849/original/file-20191021-56220-k3ttsu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" alt="" /></a></p> <p style="text-align: center;"><em> <span class="caption">Crew sorts plastic debris collected from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch on a voyage in July 2019.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA/THE OCEAN CLEANUP</span></span></em></p> <p>Whales and dolphins are often found snared in debris. Earlier this year, a young sperm whale almost died after spending three years <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/01/digit-sperm-whale-saved-from-rope-entanglement-ghost-net-fishing-gear-off-dominica/">tangled in a rope from a fishing net</a>.</p> <p>During our observation we saw young calves with their mothers. Calves are especially vulnerable to becoming trapped. With the wide range of ocean plastics in the garbage patch, it is highly likely animals in the area ingest and become tangled in it.</p> <p>It’s believed the amount of plastics in the ocean could <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43477233">triple</a> over the next decade. It is clear the problem of plastic pollution has no political or geographic boundaries.</p> <p>While plastics enter the sea from populated areas, global currents transport them across oceans. Plastics can kill animals, <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969718346072?via%3Dihub%22%22">promote disease</a>, and <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322703874_Plastic_waste_associated_with_disease_on_coral_reefs">harm the environment, our food sources and people</a>.</p> <p>The most devastating effects fall on communities in poverty. New research shows the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-22939-w">rapidly growing</a>, posing a <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12526-019-00952-0">greater threat to wildlife</a>. It reinforces the global movement to reduce, recycle and remove plastics from the environment.</p> <p>But to really tackle this problem we need creative solutions at every level of society, from communities to industries to governments and international organisations.</p> <p>To take one possibility, what if we invested in fast-growing, sustainably cultivated bamboo to replace millions of single-use plastics? It could be produced by the very countries most affected by this crisis: poorer and developing nations.</p> <p>It is only one of many opportunities to dramatically reduce plastic waste, improve the health of our environments and people, and to help communities most susceptible to plastic pollution.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/122538/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: http://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/chandra-salgado-kent-679930">Chandra Salgado Kent</a>, Associate Professor, School of Science, <a href="http://theconversation.com/institutions/edith-cowan-university-720">Edith Cowan University</a></em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="http://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/whales-and-dolphins-found-in-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch-for-the-first-time-122538">original article</a>.</em></p>

Travel Trouble

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Spectacular footage shows dolphins fleeing whale ambush

<p>It’s the kind of image that looks like it should be hanging on the wall of a hotel, or trapped in a snow globe. However, for this lucky nature enthusiast, it was real life.</p> <p>A whale watcher has captured spectacular footage of about 1,000 dolphins “porpoising” as a pod. This is the term used to describe dolphins when they repeatedly bow (or jump) as they swim rapidly forward, close to the surface of the water.</p> <p>The dolphins were fleeing an attempted ambush of orcas. Michael Sack, co-owner of Sanctuary Cruises, said there had been an "almost unprecedented" run of daily orca sightings in April.</p> <p>Mr Sack later wrote on YouTube that it was "very rare that everything comes together and we're able to document these types of encounters".</p> <p>"We know it happens regularly with the common dolphins. But there's rarely someone there with their video camera focused and waiting for it to happen. Incredible morning on The Monterey Bay for me," he said.</p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/international/2016/02/amazing-aerial-images-of-wa/"><em>10 amazing aerial images of Western Australia</em></a></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/international/2016/04/6-places-to-whale-watch-in-australia/"><em>6 places to go whale watching in Australia</em></a></strong></span></p> <p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/international/2016/02/best-place-to-swim-with-whale-sharks-in-australia/"><em>Best place to swim with whale sharks in Australia</em></a></strong></span></p>

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A personal paradise on Dolphin Island

<p>The boat slows as we approach the second of two wooden jetties extending from a white sweep of sand. Sun loungers, life jackets, masks, snorkels and kayaks are set with the precision of chess pieces beside a hammock swinging in the breeze.</p> <p>Island manager Dawn Simpson greets me with open arms.</p> <p>"Welcome home darling," she says. "You're only here for a short while, but while you're here you're home."</p> <p>The previous night I had slept next to seven strangers at an Auckland backpackers in a marquee that was billed as a yoga tent over the phone. "We call it The Refugee Tent," a young German man had said as I put down my bag.</p> <p>Fast-forward 24-hours and it is a slightly surreal feeling to have Dolphin Island as my temporary home for the next three days. Dolphin Island is a private island off the northern point of Fiji's main island, Viti Levu. It is one of three luxury properties under the wing of Huka Retreats, which also runs Huka Lodge in Taupo and Grande Provence in South Africa.</p> <p>I make my way to my room in a slight daze carrying a banana smoothie garnished with fresh coconut, pineapple and a glazed cherry. The scent of frangipani wafts up from the lei around my neck.</p> <p>As tourists on other popular beaches wage battle to lay their towels down, I am about to find out what it was like to have an island to myself.</p> <p>For lunch, Tito Rasoni brings out plates of buttery crayfish, prawns and a basket of home-baked bread so fresh the white linen it is swaddled in is warm to the touch. Worried I won't be able to finish the feast set before me, I invite Dawn to join me but she shakes her head.</p> <p>"That's for you sweetie. You enjoy it."</p> <p>Dolphin Island caters for a maximum of eight people at any one time, with guests offered exclusive use of the 14-acre island. Every aspect of a guest's comfort is considered by thoughtful staff. When I arrived on Dolphin Island, one of the first things Dawn told me was that the second jetty was chosen to save me a longer walk. The second jetty is less than 100 metres from the first.</p> <p>The private resort gives guests the chance to enjoy their time away without queues or fears of what other holidaymakers will think of their beach bodies.</p> <p>"By the time guests leave here they call me mum," Dawn says.</p> <p>"It's a special place where people can come and be spoilt rotten"</p> <p>"I love it because I meet a lot of people - the world comes to me here."</p> <p>"I've only been out of my country once but I don't need to because I learn about the world through my guests."</p> <p>Dawn began working on Dolphin Island 14 years ago with her husband Stanley. After her husband died in 2007, Dawn told island owner Alex van Heeren that she would stay on for as long as she was needed.</p> <p>"He said, "Dawn, that is going to be a very long time. You belong here - this is your home'."</p> <p>Dawn's front door is just 6m from the ocean.</p> <p>"I lie in my bed in the morning and I open the curtain to see the sunrise.</p> <p>"When guests come around they say, 'Dawn, you've got the million dollar view' and I say, 'I certainly have'."</p> <p>Dawn's guests include visitors from China, Russia, America, Germany and France. When I arrived at Nadi Airport the Fijian Immigration officer saw my planned destination and said: "You know the singer Pink? She stayed there."</p> <p>Fancy a lesson in husking coconuts? Sure. A facial, manicure, pedicure, or massage? No problem.</p> <p>"To Tito," one entry in the island guest book reads. "That margarita you waded out into the ocean to bring me was terrific and will not be forgotten. Neither will you."</p> <p>After lunch, I take the chance to look around the island. A short walk up the hill through forest opens up to a clearing with the island's open-air hilltop bedroom.</p> <p>The secluded hideaway, which is warmed by the first rays of sun in the morning, has an unobstructed view of the ocean. The quiet of the island contrasts with the bustle of the three-hour coastal shuttle ride from Nadi Airport to Ellington Wharf.</p> <p>We passed stalls selling fruit, live chickens and bundles of snapper, trevally and baracuda tied together with string. Beneath the shade of a corrugated iron roof, a sign read: "Coffin box for sale - cheapest in town".  A man splashed his bouquet of fish with water from a chilly bin.</p> <p>Driver Samu slowed as we approached a narrow bridge to allow an oncoming car to pass. I couldn't see any Give Way signs and I asked him how people knew which car should go first.</p> <p>"In Fiji, we are patient," Samu explained. "If we see someone on the other side of the bridge we wait and give them time."</p> <p>On Dolphin Island a rustle of breeze and a lapping of water are the only sounds that break the silence of a 30 degree Celsius afternoon. There's time for a quick dip in the ocean before a beer and snacks beside the infinity pool of Dolphin Island's main bure.</p> <p>The next day after breakfast, Tito gives me a lesson on coconuts. He demonstrates how to remove the husk of the coconut, how to split the coconut in half with one swift movement of a machete, and how to methodically scrape the halved coconut against a sharpened metal bur to collect the grated fruit.</p> <p>"The coconut is the tree of life," Tito says.</p> <p>"It gives you milk, water and fruit. You can even make a house out of coconut."</p> <p>I ask if Tito is ever worried about coconuts falling on people but he shakes his head. When Tito was growing up, his parents explained to him that the coconut tree had eyes to watch out for people who were passing beneath and avoid dropping fruit on them. Tito points to a triangle of darkened circles on an unhusked coconut. They are the eyes and mouth of the coconut, Tito explains, while a raised peak at the back of the fruit is a ponytail.</p> <p>"We call it a mother fruit."</p> <p>After my coconut lesson, Dawn and Tito catch the boat with me to the mainland for a tour of the market at Rakiraki Town and a visit to the traditional Fijian village of Nakorokula.</p> <p>At the market piles of eggplants, chillis, tomatoes, pineapples, pawpaws and bananas are neatly laid out on white mats. On the busiest market days you can hardly find a place to walk, Dawn says. In a shop lined wall to wall with clothing, shoes, jewellery and other knick knacks there is a T-shirt that reads "All day I dream of the sea".</p> <p>At the supermarket colourful rows of fireworks fill the shelves and banners celebrate the upcoming Indian festival of light, Diwali.</p> <p>At Nakorokula we are welcomed with a kava ceremony and musical performance. Tour guide Evuloni explains that Fiji did not have a written language before the arrival of Europeans.</p> <p>"For us, dancing and singing is very important. It tells you something about our history, language and stories."</p> <p>When we return to Dolphin Island, I am treated to a relaxing massage with Elizabeth,  who brings her massage table with her from a neighbouring island.</p> <p> As night falls on Dolphin Island there is only stillness, the soft murmurs of a restless sea, and a constellation of between 50 and 60 kerosene lamps illuminating the shore.</p> <p>After I go to bed staff work to extinguish the small beacons and tuck the cooling glass vessels away for another sunset at another time.</p> <p>The next morning Dawn is worried about whether I will have enough to eat on the shuttle ride back to Nadi Airport. Perhaps I would like an egg sandwich for the trip? I look at the remains of  my breakfast of cereal, pawpaw, pineapple, watermelon, yoghurt and homemade pastries and regretfully shake my head.</p> <p>Dawn pauses and furrows her brow.</p> <p>How about a cheese sandwich?</p> <p>It is time to say goodbye and I tell Dawn how much I've enjoyed my stay as she gives me a kiss on the cheek.</p> <p>"It's been lovely having you here," she says.</p> <p>"It's been too short though."</p> <p>As  our boat skims across the water back towards the mainland, Dolphin Island recedes into the distance. I look back at my temporary homeland and remember the taste of coconut at different stages of ripeness, from creamy and sweet, to the bubbly tartness of fizzy drink.</p> <p>My heart grows fat with happiness as I remember shaking the ripe fruit to my ear and  hearing the sound of sloshing liquid. Within each coconut on the private island, there was a secret ocean.</p> <p><em>Written by Selina Powell. First appeared on <strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.stuff.co.nz/" target="_blank">Stuff.co.nz.</a></span></strong></em></p> <p><strong>Related links:</strong></p> <p><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/international/2016/02/a-look-inside-first-class-cabins/">Inside 8 first class cabins that will amaze you</a></span></em></strong></p> <p><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/international/2016/02/most-photographed-locations-in-london/">London’s 8 most photographed locations</a></span></em></strong></p> <p><strong><em><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/travel/international/2016/02/holiday-ideas-for-animal-lovers/">8 holiday ideas every animal lover needs to experience</a></span></em></strong></p>

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