I did however take my new dry bag with my SLR backpack securely tucked away from the splashes for on land later, but that’s not the sort of camera you want to take out while kayaking in the ocean. Especially not when you are chasing wildlife.
This is a wildlife story. Previously I have spoken how I do not hunt wildlife for photos (particularly birds) because they are not obliging, and apparently a woman running towards you with an SLR is a scamper-worthy sight! My motto for taking photos for wildlife is, if it moves it’s too hard, take what you can by luck, or grace.
Well as luck would have it this Saturday morning was the most wildlife prolific of our kayaking adventures. Probably because I didn’t have my Olympus or the GoPro (which has gone to a much, much more exciting cause at the moment!). Murphy likes to play games with me like that. We saw a pod of dolphins, turtles, and a massive spotted ray all within ten minutes of hitting the water.
We paddled on and spotted movement on the horizon. A pair of manta rays were cruising around on the surface feeding – a pair! So we paddle over and just cruised with them – they weren’t fussed! They dove under our kayaks, they came up right next to us, they even invited their friends. At one point we had six manta rays all within 5-10 meters of our 12ft kayaks. Largest wingspan was the length of the kayaks. We even saw two of these beauties breaching about 100m away. It was magical.
After some time, the numbers dwindled, my husband says to me ‘Hon, I think you need to get your SLR out.’ We are in the middle of the ocean, can’t see the bottom, the kayaks are rocking (although, these kayaks are pretty stable, you’d be hard pressed to capsize them) and my camera is tucked/buried in the dry bag a the front of the kayak. This means I need to edge forward, undo the dry bag, dig out my camera and move back without tipping the kayak, without letting Betsy touch either me who has had a dip already, or the kayak which has water in the bottom. We debated about it for a little while, but the opportunity outweighed the common sense of leaving the SLR in the dry bag.
I got the camera out. The Manta rays vamoosed.
Again, one of Murphy’s games.
We spotted them about 100m off. This meant I had to paddle – carefully so as to not splash poor Betsy – after them, breaking my rule of not hunting wildlife for photos. Three times we did this to no avail, they simply stopped being obliging. It was at this point that I literally started to pray. ‘God,’ I said, ‘You have created these amazing creatures, I have my camera out, please send one back for a photo!’ One of those prayers that’s like a kid asking their parent for a special treat…and sometimes they give in. He sent two of the mantas back and I started clicking madly away. Next thing this creature is right next to my kayak, I could not have asked for a better swim by. I was blown away, not only was I able to capture one of these amazing creatures but it brought home a little lesson – that God does care about the little, seemingly insignificant things and does delight to see people happy in his creation. Sometimes it’s the small mercies that make this life worth living!
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| It was about now that I realised, hey this guy is gonna swim right past me! EOS 50D f/6.3, 1/640 shutter, ISO 250, 120mm, manual. Polarizing filter. Adjustments in Adobe RAW |
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| Now he is right next to my kayak! Woo! EOS 50D, f/6.3, 1/640 shutter, ISO 250, 35mm, polarizer, adjustments in Adobe RAW |
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