Sunday, January 20, 2013

Today was absolutely magical!

When I was a little girl, there was a TV shoe called, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom that weekly depicted wondrous glimpses of nature’s animals. The show always ended with a take down/kill, me fleeing from the room just prior, not wanting to witness Bambi or whoever get killed and subsequently eaten.

I only got to watch the show every other week, while staying with my father. I loved that show! Whenever the program focused on pods of whales, I’d promise myself that someday…somehow I’d get to witness the beauty of whales—in person.

When I moved to my current beach house, a lifelong dream, I began looking into local whale watching boat and also helicopter tours. I wanted to make my little girl dream of personally spotting whales become a reality.

Today was a gorgeous day, sunny and warm, brilliant enough that people flocked to my beach to soak up some fun in the sun, myself amongst them. Not long after arriving at the beach, I caught sight of something I’d never seen before—least not in person. Straining to see it again, I was rewarded and realized that what I had just seen was a whale blowing water out of its blowhole, right in front of me, just on the other side of the waves!

OMG!

My mind reeled with the wondrous beauty before me. I scanned the water, hoping to again see proof that a whale was right there. What greeted me was more than I could’ve ever hoped for. There, right in front of me, was an entire pod of whales, swimming along at a graceful pace, spouting water from their blowholes every once in a while.

Sooooo cool!

As I continued to look on, the whales moved a little father offshore, picking up their pace. Then I realized they were likely killer whales. Why? Well, just as in the Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom shows of my youth, the mighty mammals began to arch their way out of the water then come crashing down—over and over again—all in a centralized area. Then came the birds. Just a few at first, but then their numbers grew. Similar to watching flocks of sea birds trail behind a fishing boat, what I was witnessing were killer whales killing their food, the birds coming to pick up what scraps the whales left behind.

Nothing to waste….

Unlike when I was a little girl, I couldn’t take my eyes off what played out before me. It was surreal, like watching a movie, though my brain kept reminding me it was real, not some cinematic bedazzler. It was soooooo much more than I could’ve ever hoped for! Allowed my little girl hopes and dreams of seeing whales up-close-and-personal become a reality. Made today absolutely magical!