It was incredible. A crisp clear sunny December morning with decent vis under the water and as soon as I paddled over the dolphins came to investigate me. My goggles really came into their own as they circled just a couple of feet away eyeing me inquisitively. With a quick nod and a burst of sonar clicks in my direction they were off and I watched them splashing their tails nearby before they shot back past me riding a wave towards the rocks. They jumped out of the back of the wave and raced underneath me, it was amazing.
My footage is not quite so incredible as I was using the Go Pro wrist mount which has the dome lens on it which blurs the underwater footage (and it's shaky too). Still it's better than nothing and I am really glad to have a record of what turned out to be one of my best and most interesting dives with the dolphins to date.
They played with me and around me for an hour or more, surfing, circling me and when I dived down they would come and investigate me it was a really special experience and one I know I'll never forget. We drifted along the coast with the tide and I noticed that two or three of the pod were friendly and playful whilst the largest stayed at a distance. I also wondered why they were staying in one place, only moving with the current. It was only after my camera battery had died that I found out why.
There was (what I thought was) a baby dolphin with them, but it quickly became clear all was not well. The baby was not surfacing and the other dolphins were nudging it, then bringing it to the surface over and over again. It was a heartbreaking scene. I finally got close enough while it was at the surface to examine it. It was about 2.5 to 3ft long and its nose was very stubby, it had lacerations on its head and other abrasions and was clearly dead. My excitement had quickly turned to sadness so I released the dead calf back to the sea leaving the dolphins to their vigil. I climbed the cliff with a heavy heart.
As it turned out I was wrong on just about every count! I called the Dolphin people at Cornwall Wildlife Trust and agreed to go back and try and retrieve the body for autopsy. I returned to the sea for a frustrating two hours unable to catch up with the pod who were spending most of their time underwater. They buzzed me a few times but there was sign of the calf.
It was only when I returned home exhausted and called the Wildlife Trust back that we realised my description matched not a baby Bottle-nose Dolphin but a young Harbour Porpoise. I checked some images and confirmed the species, it turns out Dolphins often kill their smaller brethren! That certainly put a different perspective on things! If I had known that I would have brought the body back straight away, but at least I could describe their behaviour which was really unusual under the circumstances.
A fantastic day and my ridiculous looking gear paid off sooner than expected!
