Hi, I’m Ayla, 19 years old and I’m spending a month at Delfini Del Ponente.
It’s my first experience in research and it’s incredibly interesting. I have learned so much about the cetaceans that inhabit our Mediterranean Sea and how to study them. But the best part is of course the surveys where we take the zodiac out to sea and scan the horizon for dolphins. So far I have seen groups of bottlenose dolphins several times and some of them even had a baby with them:) it is really nice to see and observe these animals in their natural habitat. We also saw huge groups of striped dolphins which came so close to our boat that I could have touched them! They swam in front of our boat and kept looking up at us curiously:)
I never thought I would be able to get so close to such wonderful animals.
Not only did we see dolphins, but also the sunfish (Mola Mola) and a loggerhead turtle (Caretta caretta). And all this in only 4 surveys so far!
When we have free time we usually do something together, I can promise you that the gelati here is fantastic and you definitely have to try all the flavours:)
In addition to a beautiful old town, there is also a large snorkelling beach and here you can see many different animals. Besides many colourful fish, we also discovered a purple jellyfish (Pelagia Noctiluca) and a Mediterranean moray (Murena helena).
All in all, this month has been a unique experience that I will never forget. You can learn and discover so much here and all the encounters with the animals in the sea are wonderful!
