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| A few images did capture our encounter |
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| These are screen captures of one of the videos |
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| It shows the pod of an estimated 8 individuals |
Summer holiday, Leo, my twelve year old son, and myself have spent every day of the last two weeks on the kayak out in the sea. The island is wild and beautiful from afar. No noisy overcrowded beaches, no cars, just the ocean and the green island. The weather is perfect and the sea is flat.
Our day´s objective was Illa na Plana, a tiny island that hosts an outpost lighthouse and that is surrounded by a few other tiny rocky islands. It is about 6 km to get there. Quite a challenge with our inflatable Gumotex kayak.
We were well past Illa s´Espartar and halfway towards Illa na Gorra when Leo spotted foamy bubbles on the surface. "What do you think this is ? Pollution ?" He asked. "It looks like a motorboat passed, mixed up the water", I replied, although we hadn´t seen any boats for awhile. We would soon find out what it was caused by.
And while we rowed, alert, with our dolphin radar look scanning the lower horizon - we had hoped to see dolphins ever since we arrived on the island - I saw it !
"There!" I yelped at Leo and started to row. "A dolphin!"
And now Leo and I were full speed racing behind the pod in the direction of Vedra island.
They were about half a kilometer away, quite a distance to catch up. "I´m not sure we will make it", I put to Leo, but he didn´t want to hear about it and pushed on. Soon enough there were right next to us.
It is a family, the big male or males, females, and a very young one accompanied by his mother who comes up very frequently to breathe.
We accompany them and what them how they slowly move down the coast. Aligned horizontally, looking for prey, disappearing from one moment to the other to then pop up unexpectedly a hundred meters away.
Leo takes out his GoPro and films. This small camera is really nifty, the quality s great. It has its limitations however. With its wide angle it does not allow to capture far away items well. What is 10m away looks like it is at a distance of 50m. And, as it does not feature a screen, you don´t know what you have got until you connect it to your iphone / computer at home.
Eventually we are halfway towards Vedra island - far away. Time to turn around.
We are so full of joy, excitement and adrenaline that we decide to make it to Illa na Plana. On our way we see black shadows jumping out of the water and splashing back into the water. They are huge, at least two meters in size. What are those ? Marlins ? Or stingrays ?
When we arrived Illa na Plana our arms are weak and our strength is used up. We took our snorkels and fins and went behind the islands beautiful diving spot. The sea dips into the abyss and the edge is full of all kinds of fish.
On our way back the wind picks up and the sea turns wavy with a diagonal pull. It is 6 km back and I am already tired. When we made it safely back to Cala Compte I´m relieved and half dead. We were gone for five hours.
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| The waterdrop :-( |
At home we download the GoPro: Disaster ! There was drop of water on the lense that filtered out exactly the centre of the image. Where we expected to see dolphins there is only a grey blur.
Oh well. Our memory will have to do !
