Special!

We were up early again this morning. There was a purpose to this - to get down to the marina and onto a boat for a little trip.

Not a normal boat but one of those super fast speed boats. Great fun it was hurtling along at more than 30knots (c40mph) crashing across the swell out on the Atlantic Ocean.

That however was not the purpose (no pun intended). It was to get out and see a pod of dolphins. It's not always certain that you will see them, but, as we were the second trip out that they knew more or less where to find them.

And boy did we see some! Probably in the region of twenty five of them including young ones. Initially they were a little reluctant to come closer than 40-50m away, but, after a few minutes, they were swimming all round and under the boat (now doing just a few knots I hasten to add). Now the adage goes "never work with children and animals". Dolphins certainly come under the latter category. Fabulous though they were to watch, they are incredibly difficult to photograph. This was my first time seeing them up close never mind photographing them. I had only my 24-105mm lens which was adequate for any within a few metres of the boat. The fabulous autofocus on my camera was an aid but by no means a guarantee of getting a shot in focus. With the rocking of the boat, others crowded around the edge I managed only 10% keepers and only a handful of good images. That's out of over 400 images in 40 minutes.

The main problem was catching them as they surface to breathe. They were swimming for about 30-40 seconds between each breathe and then breaking the surface for about a second when you could see the head for probably about 1/5sec. Predicting that was really difficult.

It was great just standing there and watching them swim gracefully by. Near the boat they would turn sideways and look at you, and then, with a single sweep of their tail, accelerate away!

This isn't the sharpest shot but the best view of one that I got. I hope you like it.

Not a cheap trip, but, worth every penny.