Two kayakers from Fife have been left speechless after a dolphin approached the pair and began ‘playing’ with them in the River Forth.
Jason Canning, 32, from Dalgety Bay, was out Kayaking with his partner, Carla Robertson, 31, when the pair spotted a single dolphin playing in the Braefoot Bay terminal on Sunday afternoon.
At first, Jason thought he had seen a giant fish leap through the water but as the two got closer, they discovered it was actually a dolphin.
Jason said: “As we were passing the Braefoot Bay terminal, I saw a splash in the distance and I actually thought it was a big sea trout or something.
“I said to my partner, Carla, ‘I just saw a huge fish jump over there in the distance.’
“She’d seen the splash but hadn’t seen the fish and we kind of thought oh well that was that.
“We started paddling and then I saw it jump again and thought, ‘that’s possibly the biggest fish I’ve ever seen’, so we decided to go a wee bit closer.
Dolphin’s antics ‘like a show’
“The next thing this dolphin just popped out of nowhere diving through the air just splashing three or four times in front of us.
“It basically did that for about 45 minutes, getting closer and closer and closer to the point where it was almost two meters away from us.
“I couldn’t believe this was happening in front of us.
“Sometimes you see these things and they pop up for just a second and then disappear and you go ‘wow that was great’ but this was like a show.”
The 32-year-old from Dalgety Bay said it felt as if the dolphin was trying to play with both him and his partner.
Jason said: “The dolphin looked like it was actually trying to play with us.
“It was trying to splash us and interact with us in some way.
“It was magical, it was really magical.
“Something I’ll not forget, that’s for sure.”
Cheeky selfie
The dolphin stayed and splashed around the couple for around 45 minutes before swimming off.
But it managed to jump in a quick selfie with Jason before saying goodbye.
“I genuinely just think it was just playing with us because it was just getting closer and closer and just slapping down and splashing the water up.
“It tried to get a wee cheeky selfie, which is just ridiculous really.
“There’s not many people who can say they’ve done that before, with a dolphin in the Forth.”
Jason said it was great to be able to spend some time in the water with such a rarely sighted creature, so close to his home town.
“It was just unbelievable to be so close up from Daglety Bay, so close to home and have dolphins playing with you.
“It’s the sort of thing that you don’t get even if you go to Sea World.
“It was a magical moment.”