New Year’s… frustration

My high is blown. Just when I was feeling almost happy for the first time in years.

I have a hut. I love it.

I have a boat. It’s big enough. Just.

I have company in Kiki. He’s a skilled sailor, local, and my friend.

I have dolphins. I love dolphins.

I can smoke on the beach, around the fire, after my fish supper that I can now catch myself using the speargun Kiki gave me.

Sounds like paradise?

But it all means nothing if I can’t work.

I haven’t posted for a while because I’ve been setting up my kit and just ONE piece of my equipment isn’t working.

And it’s the sensors – key to the whole project – that are playing up. They’re not playing ball at all.

I brought about 10% of my kit with me: satellite laptop (so I can communicate with the world), the special sensors (which I am not allowed to let out of my sight) that i hope to attach to some dolphins and some lightweight and portable fish/dolphin-finding radio stuff.

The rest arrived days ago. This was brilliant news until I set it all up and the sensors aren’t talking to their receiving stations. I have tried turning everything on and off, reassembling the whole set up and have generally tinkered long into the night, working new year’s day and everything, and still they just will not speak.

Why? Why me? Why me, and why now?

I’m on the threshold of starting something that could revolutionise the way that we understand marine mammalian communication and… there are no just no words.

The sensors are the key to the whole project. It’s ex-military technology being used for more peaceful purposes. That’s why this project is so secret and I can’t tell you who I am, where I am, or the finer details of what I’m doing. This the first time this technology is being used outside of a military programme.

No prizes for guessing which one: it’s been known since the 80s that the US Navy trained dolphins to seek out submerged anti-ship mines. This is an ongoing programme, and used (with varying success) in the 2003 Iraq war.

This is all in the public domain if you know where to look so I don’t see why I can’t reveal a few details here.

In fact, there have been rumours, and I mean rumours, for years that dolphins have been trained up to do much more than just seek and identify sea-mines, and not just for the US Navy.

Let me be clear. On a personal level I disagree with the exploitation of any animals in human warfare. On a professional level, if the technology is there and can then be utilised for a peaceful, conservation-oriented research, then this is surely the best application of such technology.

Don’t be scared. The sensors are really just very advanced tracking devices that also happen to do a magnificent job of recording ALL the sounds that dolphins make, and from mega distances.

I know a little more about the theoretical capabilities of these devices but I’ll shut up now before my anger gets me in trouble. Bloody things aren’t working anyway!

I’d love to tinker, but I don’t really want to try and open them. As ex-military technology, the sensors are designed to be tamper proof so they can’t be reverse-engineered if they falls into the wrong hands. They also have to withstand massive changes in pressure as the dolphins dive to feed and resurface to breathe, so opening them will probably just break them.

I should probably send the sensors back, but I had jump through more hoops than a theme park whale to get them and I’m not quite ready to give up yet. It will delay the project by months, years even.

I’ve been taking some long walks in the forest to try and clear my head. I hope you like the pic.

I see now that some people are reading. I might back to you when i’ve stopped sulking.

I’ll give it another week and practise spear fishing.

Oh, happy new year.