Out of Town Part 2 Dolphin Survey Boat New Quay Wales

On the 31st of July 2020 I chartered the Dolphin Survey Boat for a 1 hour trip, the aim was to attempt to photograph any dolphins or porpoises that we came across. The Anna Lloyd is owned and skippered by Steve Hartley who has over 35 years professional boating experience and has been running New Quay boat trips since 1996.

The Dolphin Survey has a few rules the most important is that they keep the boat at least 50 yards away from the dolphins that is unless the dolphins decide to swim up to the boat. Covid -19 has also made things interesting and at the moment you can only be on this boat within your own family bubble. I had my brother with me as it was his birthday treat.

As a photographer you may wonder which lens to use whilst out, in my opinion there is no right or wrong lens to take with you this is because the dolphins can appear at any distance and from any direction. I think that it's important to remember that the boat can at times both pitch and roll which  makes things a little complicated and this is where an image stabilised lens may be at an advantage. For this trip I used a 400mm prime lens and an Eos 1d MK4 body, it proved to be the correct combo as most of the action was quite a way from the boat.

I didn't really know what to expect from this trip and I was quite surprised to see a large male bottlenose dolphin flip onto its back and start swimming in circles with it's pectoral fins in the air.
This is not a known behaviour and rarely seen and it was such a rare sight that it got all of the skippers phoning each other to confirm if they had seen it happen.

Bottlenose Dolphin Swimming Upside-down.

Male Bottlenose Dolphin with a White Dorsal Fin