As if being surrounded by rainbows wasn't enough - yesterday was our first significant day of dolphin sightings, with a small pod playing about in the Rainbow Warrior's bow wave for a while. Despite strong winds and a rolling swell, several of us watched them ducking and diving, breaking the surface and even chasing each other.
After the dolphins had peeled off - bored of playing, or maybe gone chasing fish - I headed down to the radio room. While stowing my camera gear, I casually glanced out the porthole, and noticed a cloud of white seabirds concentrated over a small patch of sea. Some of the birds were hurtling into the water, in pursuit of some kind of fishy prey. I ran up on deck, where Malcolm (photographer) already has his telephoto on. Through our camera lenses we could see that the birds - some of which were gannets - were cashing in on a feeding frenzy stirred up my some dolphins. The water was boiling with the dorsal fins of dolphins and high-speed seabirds crashing into the surface.
I had only seen film footage of this kind of thing before - so it was pretty amazing to see it firsthand, even if it was only in the distance. The dolphins chase their prey, 'cornering' them into a spinning cylinder of fish, surrounded by dolphins. As the dolphins grab potential escapees, the seabirds get in on the act, diving deep below the surface, and coming up with a mouthful of fish. It's a neat demonstration of the food chain at work!
