In 2006 George Karbus(www.emerald-vision.com) filmed Dusty, his partner Kate and me at Dusty’s favored location that year, Green Island. At the time I was not allowed to publish the footage. Now the company and her director have gone off the grid, so here you are.
The MayDay Tapes, part 1(click for the entire video, 9.39 mins)
Part one is of a quality that neither iMovie nor YouTube could improve. That, however, is more than compensated by an early George and of course the dolphins phenomenal elegance. It’s a very fun free dive with lots of action.
At 2.30 you see an impressive Fly-over and at 3.10 the only fragment I could publish, the ‘Belly-flash’. Then, at 6.22 Dusty makes a barrel roll and at 7.35 I try to get her interested in a stone(which she finds tedious but next enthusiastically joins me swimming).
A local foreigner who thought he owned the Green Island coast because he had built access steps, took revenge on my publishing Dusty’s whereabouts in Dolphin Address by twice throwing my stuff into the sea at unguarded moments. The loss of the underwater house of my video camera kept me from further documenting that summer. At 8.27 you see me retrieving my ‘cast a weight belt’ and landing it on the rocks.
In the next edition of Dolphin Address I hope to show part two featuring a wonderful sequence of Dusty and Kate. Also the quality of Mayday tape 2 is better.
For the more recent news about Dusty, she has returned from Inisheer to the Clare coast and we are trying very hard to keep her interested in Fanore by going there as much as possible. She is mostly to be found at Pollenawatch, through the gate just past the Crumlin Lodge and down the stumble path keeping slightly to the left.
The blasting for the new pier in Doolin Harbour is still going on and is sufficiently monitored by the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group. We all very much want her to stay away from there as the explosions may destroy her hearing and she would starve to death as she would not be able to use her sonar in hunting. Therefor we urgently call the public to do nothing to attract her to Doolin Harbour.
Soon spring will come and Pollenawatch will bloom to its full beauty again, a wonderful haven to watch the dolphin.