Sharing the water

It's Sunday, swim in Oriental Bay day. The water sure is cooler, but it was calm today and we enjoyed it. (Have I mentioned lately that I love my wetsuit?). The first 25 yards is hard on the face, the lungs and the heart rate, but after our feet and hands warm up, it's fun. The air temperature is cooler than the water. No more swimming to the lighthouse for a while though, it will be real cold that little bit further out, and the weather can change too quickly. So today we swam from beach to buoy, to buoy, to the fountain, back to the first buoy, and back to the beach. We wallowed about in the shallows a bit, and commented how there were no little fish or starfish to be seen. Too bloody cold for them we decided. Amble up the beach to the car park, stop for a chat with our much loved coach.

"Look, what's that out there, by the fountain?"
"It's a dolphin.....two!"
"That's too big for a dolphin, it's a whale."
"They're Orca!"
"Look there's another one. It's huge."

Errr, but we were just there, by the fountain, 10 or 15 minutes ago. Wallowing under the fountain spray which was cold and heavy. Next thing we know there's an Orca by the raft that we sometimes stop and jump off, close to shore. Not quite breaching but swimming high to make sure we see his handsome white patch. Eventually we figured out there were 3. Looked like mother and calf, and the big daddy one. You know, big, meat eating Orca. We don't look like seals in our wetsuits. Of course we don't!

It was very exciting to see them. They were big and beautiful, and we all agreed, it's their water after all.

I would've like to add some pix to this post....but I'm having copyright concerns!