We left port at dawn. It's always the same: the alarm goes off while it's still dark, you feel a terrible reluctance, and you wonder if it's really necessary to get up at that hour. But then you watch the sun rise from the boat, and it all makes sense.
This wasn't a leisure trip. We were out documenting pelagic life in Balearic waters, as always tied to some marine conservation project I'm involved in.
After several hours of sailing, we spotted something on the horizon. At first it looked like dolphins, maybe ten. But as we got closer... it wasn't ten, or even twenty. It was hundreds of striped dolphins (Stenella coeruleoalba), moving in groups that merged into one another, leaping alongside the hull, crossing the bow again and again.
It was a huge, scattered group, closing in on us from far away. They stayed with us for over an hour. I don't know what they were looking for, if they were looking for anything at all. I know I set the camera down for longer than I'd like to admit, just watching.
I've spent years in the water, and there are few times I've felt that sense of flow so clearly. Hundreds of animals moving as if they were one. One of those things you see once and never forget.
This time I didn't get in the water. It wasn't necessary — I only do that on rare occasions, when I want to document something specific. Shooting from the boat or from the air is the best way to document with minimal disturbance. Besides, Mediterranean dolphins are very elusive, and photographing them underwater rarely makes sense.
- Enric