I am kayaking in the Santa Monica Bay in the late evening, and suddenly about 200 dolphins emerge from the ocean. These are not the bottlenose dolphins people see from the beach, but a species called Long-beaked common dolphins. They rocket themselves from the ocean and will often twist and flip in the air.
Each time these dolphins pop up around my kayak, I am frightened. They are huge creatures, and no matter how many stories of happy, friendly dolphins that inhabited the storybooks of my childhood, all that animal mass surrounding you is extreme.
I am about a mile offshore. These dolphins come in while in pursuit of fish shoals. Just before the dolphins emerged, I saw the shimmer a thousand fish underneath my boat.
I keep my camera in the kayak at all times, but I have never been able to capture the dolphins in a meaningful way. This image is actually of a water filled with dolphins, but you can tell from the image more about my nerves than sea mammals.
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