I love gannets. I enjoyed photographing them in Portland a couple of years ago as well as the ones I’ve been following every time I go to Eastern Beach. They fascinate me. I’ve been keen to visit the colony at Popes Eye in Port Phillio Bay for years now. I haven’t been able to justify the cost considering, well, I’m project. Chronic migraines didn’t help.
When the opportunity to do a marine biology cruise around the bay came up, I phoned up immediately. I’ve been trying to get my nephew and I on one of these trips for year but they always get booked out quickly.
This time… we were lucky! And it only cost $10 each, compared to $70+ for a tourist-type of cruise. Awesome!
Alas, we didn’t get to spend much time at either the gannet or the seal colony. The main focus was viewing and identifying sea life that they got from the bottom of the sea floor. I managed to make do with the 5 minute views we got of each 😉
Seals
We only got a quick view of the seals, and the other side of the boat got a better view. It was still pretty cool though. Some of them were incredibly large. Unfortunately some of the photos had a blueish tinge, a theme that has also popped up with my street photography. I’ll be exploring how to fix this.
Gannets
Popes Eye itself was all kinds of brilliant. I was surprised to see this other boat so close and am not sure that is even legal, however that is my naivete speaking.
We only got a quick look. It was mostly gannets although I did see some black faced cormorants. It was so fascinating to see the gannets at different ages, even though I had seen that at the Portland colony. I would love to spend a season just photographing these guys. I would also love to go snorkeling and explore here properly. This cruise has only cemented my love for the bay.
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