I would imagine that every photographer has experienced a time where they missed the shot simply because weren't prepared. Yesterday was one of those moments. My study abroad group had the privilege of going out whale watching in Kaikoura, through a local touring charter run predominantly by Māori. It was a beautiful day - far better than we could have hoped for, and the water was a vibrant cyan.
We departed from the harbor on a stealthy touring vessel that could carry 50 passengers and reach speeds of over 35 knots.
After an hour of travel, the crew began to pick up the echolocation of a nearby sperm whale. I was ecstatic, since this would be the first sperm whale I had ever seen. After a bit of looking around, someone spotted the diagonal spout of the whale (sperm whales don't have the vertical spouts like most whales do), so we headed in that general direction. A few minutes later, we saw it surface. This thing was huge - much bigger than the humpbacks I see at home in Alaska. We all watched it come up for a few breaths, while I clicked away with my camera. Suddenly, I heard a crew member yell, "It's diving! Get your cameras ready!" I saw it plunge downwards, with it's large tail gracefully following behind.
snap
... nothing.
I check my camera. "Card is full."
I frantically delete a folder in order to clear space for the last of the visible tail.
As it turns out, I deleted all of my images from that entire day, AND the camera didn't load in time to get the shot. So unfortunately, I don't have any sperm whale images to share with you folks, and all of these images were taken after the encounter. But, on the bright side, I did see my first sperm whale. :)
Fortunately for me, on the way back to the harbor, we stopped rather suddenly because one of the crew had spotted a whale . It was actually two whales, and, as I found out later, they were beaked whales, which just so happen to be a particularly rare sight around New Zealand. It's nothing spectacular, but this shot was extremely satisfying to take after the previous failure.
Could I have taken better photographs? Absolutely, but it was a gorgeous day out on the ocean with one of the best views you could ask for, so all in all, I'm not complaining.
