Croatia: The Blue World Institute

After a long day's journey, I finally arrived in Mali Losinj, a beautiful coastal town located at the end of an island off the coast of Croatia. I was welcomed by the two interns working at the Blue World Insitute as well as by the other volunteers, and shown around the big apartment that we were all sharing overlooking the harbour of Mali Losinj. 

Although we were living in Mali Losinj, we worked every day of the week in the smaller neighbouring town of Veli Losinj (pictured), a short car ride away, where the Blue World Institute is based. The BWI is an NGO focusing its research on large marine vertebrates and their environment, with a goal of protection and conservation. They are currently working on a project called the Adriatic Dolphin Project, mostly monitoring resident and visiting populations of bottlenose dolphins in the Adriatic Sea in order to colect data, understand them better and ultimately be able to protect them. This is the project that I volunteered for in May 2017.

Whenever the weather allowed us to, we would spend our working days out on the sea in the Blue World Institute's boat (pictured), looking for groups of dolphins to observe and monitor. Once we found dolphins, we would record data such as GPS coordinates, the number of dolphins in the group and what type of behavior they were displaying . We would usually be in the field for the entire day, from around 10AM to 3PM, and the boat ride would very often require two things: warm clothing and patience. Warm clothing, because (and I learned that the hard way) although it is almost summer and very hot out, the wind from the open sea will have you feeling like an ice cube and violently shivering in no time at all. It only took me one very cold trip to understand my mistake and arrive the next day wearing five layers of clothing. Looking like the Michelin Man, yes, but a very warm Michelin Man. And patience, because very often, we would not spot dolphins for a long time, sometimes several hours. We would drive the boat around the studied area of the Ardiatic Sea between the island and the mainland, and squint at the endless strip of blue that stretched to the horizon in the hopes of finding a distant speck that was something else than a wave or a bird. Enough to drive you crazy after three hours of relentless squinting.

One afternoon in particular, we had been out to sea for more than three hours with not much luck. I was cold and tired and had lost all hope of seeing a dolphin that day; I honestly just wished we would go back home so that I could eat a nice warm dinner. In addition to that, we spotted some pretty nasty-looking clouds heading our way and I was hoping with all my might that we would be back before I was wet in addition to being cold. But things would not go according to that plan. As we were on our way back, we decided to go back to the fishing trawley that we had seen earlier in our very last attempt to see dolphins that day. Dolphins have become used to feeding behind fishing boats, as it makes the job much easier for them, and we were hoping to find some late afternoon feeders behind that particular boat. Sure enough, as we got there, we encountered a group of bottlenose dolphins filling up on fish. As we got closer, they moved away from the boat, finished with their meal and ready to play.

There we were, in the middle of a group of jumping dolphins, with beautiful light from the setting sun and curtains of rain on the horizon, on an evening that had proved to be quite the plot twist. They played around us for a while, making quite a show of themselves with jumps, twirls, dives and belly rolls, and it was amazing to watch. We spent a good half hour with them collecting data on our observation sheets but also just enjoying the show and taking lots of pictures. I entirely forgot about being cold and was having the time of my life spending time with these little guys and knowing that what I was seeing, not a lot of people would get to see in a lifetime. As we headed home under a double rainbow, I felt like I couldn't be any luckier.

Another memorable dolphin encounter was on a beautiful sunny day, when we had been out on the boat for barely half an hour and came across a pod that was clearly in a playful mood. We noticed that there were two pairs of mothers with their babies in the group, and they were swimming together. As we got closer to them, they came swimming towards us and decided to boat ride for a while - which is when they swim right underneath, next to or in front of the boat as it moves forward. It was an incredible experience to get to share this moment with them and see them so close as they were surfacing sometimes mere centimeters from us! During that sighting, my job was a very exciting one - I got to film them boat riding underwater with a GoPro (pictured). So during the entire encounter, I was leaning out of the boat with my arm shoulder-deep in the water trying my best to get the dolphins in shot. My hand did get scarily close to a jellyfish and I did end up with my four layers of sweaters completely drenched, but it was definitely worth it. My footage turned out to be pretty good, and I included some extracts of it in the video of my experience in Croatia that you can find at the top of this page. I also later found out, while going through the footage, that one of the dolphins actually pooped right in front of the camera, and it inevitably got on my hand and arm. So yes, technically I did spend the rest of the ride with dolphin poop on me. Not everyone can say that, now, can they?

Our working days would usually end at around 3PM and we had Sundays off, which meant that we had a lot of free time. It was really fun to be able to spend it exploring the town of Mali Losinj, walking along the coast, driving to beautiful neighboring towns and going to a hilltop cafe overlooking Mali Losinj with a breathtaking view of the town and the island. That view really made me take a step back and realize how lucky I was to be able to spend my year living incredible adventures in such beautiful places.