"That's it!!!"

After the last successful day in Portimão, we already had more samples from there than from the rest of the coast. The forecast was good, which meant we could relax a bit now. That meant we could stay in port to do a few stuff that got consistently left behind, such as doing the laundry. It was also the day to change the crew. That day, Eva, Diana and Joana left, giving way to Diana's sister, Cláudia, her friend Marília, and Mariana, a friend of Margarida. Given that the day before we had reached a round number in samples, I decided to offer a pint of Guinness to. It was one of the very few opportunities we had to truly relax.

This picture is going to show up in facebook anyway, so I might as well put it here first!!!!

The next day was off to the sea again though, and we had the same weather as before. Absolutely no wind, flat sea, great visibility, and dolphins... loads of them. It was like that until the end! It was so easy that we could afford the luxury of choosing which ones we wanted to sample. It was only made difficult by the extreme heat. It was so hot that I was dripping sweat just by standing on the side of the boat aiming. It was near to unbearable! Still samples were increasing, we were cataloguing the animals we saw carefully, and it finnally looked like a proper research fieldwork. It almost made me forget how difficult it had been for the rest of the season. One day, Daniel and his girlfriend Tania came to spend the day with us (Daniel is the only other Portuguese in the biology department in Durham), and at some point everyone went for a swim to be able to cope with the heat.

Cláudia Canas

Mariana

Dolphins...

Lots of dolphins!

On that day I got an unexpected gift from Diana and Eva. It had a special taste as that would be one of the last days of fieldwork, and we finished it by making a small tribute to one of the greatest sailors that ever crossed the oceans.

"I am a citizen of the most beautiful nation on earth. A nation whose laws are harsh yet simple, a nation that never cheats, which is immense and without borders, where life is lived in the present. In this limitless nation, this nation of wind, light, and peace, there is no other ruler besides the sea."

Until finnally, the wind came. It was just me Margarida and my father, and we found dolphins really close to Portimão. We took 3 samples, but then they decided to join the Audi Medcup Regatta, and we had to back off. Also the wind quickly picked up, and it was obvious Nortada was here once again, at least for a couple of days. As we were coming back to port, we still found another group,but with the strong winds it was the all too familiar "too difficult". Thus, fieldseason 2009 finished as it started, with no hype, no celebrations, just the constant effort of getting as many samples as possible, despite the difficult conditions. As we moored in Portimão the GPS that was turned on for the entire project marked 6776 miles.