Dean McLaren and wife Caroline Cook were kayaking in the bay just off the Port Fairy Surf Life Saving Club when they encountered a pod of 20 to 30 dolphins, Mr McLaren said. 

“The people next to us had been up in a gyro-copter earlier and mentioned that they had seen a pod of dolphins in the bay,” he said,

“We paddled over to the area where they said they had seen them but at first there wasn’t anything there and the next thing we know there is this 30 or so pod of dolphins.”

Originally Mr McLaren did not want to ruin the moment by reaching for his camera and only started to snap away after watching the pod feast on a school of fish. 

“I didn’t want to have the camera out for too long as it wasn’t waterproof and it wasn’t until later when I looked at the picture did I realise what I had captured,” Mr McLaren said

“I could hardly believe it when I saw it on the preview screen.”

However, there was another photo that got away — Mr McLaren blaming a fumble with the camera for missing the snap. “I missed an amazing shot of a dolphin jumping right out of the water near Caroline’s kayak but I pressed the wrong button and missed it,” he said yesterday.

“I’m not getting hung up on it ... but.”