01-27-2011, 12:12 AM
A lot of digital video cameras have really good zoom - stabilization (all kinds) helps a lot when you're trying to get stuff like this captured, and video is way better than stills for catching the transient events like a whale breach or boat doing something exceptionally boneheaded.
I'm a little torn, since I used to "ride" sea turtles when I was 12 years old, with nothing but a snorkel in a 30' deep canal. Trust me, I had much more to lose than the sea turtle in those encounters... 10 years later, I've got dive boat captains telling me that approaching a sea turtle could give it a heart attack, oh, and harassing the puffer fish is also something they get really pissy about (I never made one inflate with air, and the ones we got up to basketball size underwater always recovered within seconds...) Yes, we should respect our marine friends, and running a whale-calf pair down with any kind of motorized boat is over the line as far as I'm concerned, but on the other hand, if "normal" people aren't permitted to interact with sea creatures unless it's on a dinner plate, I think that's even worse.