Orcas in the Bay

There is a fine art to digging a hole on the beach in the right place – too high up and it doesn’t get any water running into it. Boring. Too close and you might as well be swimming in the sea. Today, for the first time this holiday, I nailed it. Every now and then a wave would be strong enough to reach and fill the hole with water – much to Kit’s delight.

Our perfectly placed puddle happened to be in line with the beach foot traffic (although the traffic has slowed considerable, it being 11 January). A boy of about 10 ran in front of us and wiped out. There was something about the wipe-out that made it look somewhat intentional. A bit of pizzazz. A bit too convenient as it placed him directly in line with us and he clearly had something to say. “There’s killer whales.”

“Where?” my dad asked.

In cricket when the umpire signals a 4. That’s pretty much the gesture he used to indicate the killer whales location. So now we knew that the orcas were indeed in the ocean.

Tailing the boy was his mother.

“Did you see the killer whales?” she asked.

We had not.

“You haven’t?!” she said, utterly astonished. “There were about 20 of them”.

She elaborated … Her son had pointed the “dolphins” out. She didn’t have her glasses on though but she knew that she wouldn’t be able to see dolphins from that distance. Huge fins. She had also heard people mention that there were killer whales in the bay. It all added up: Orcas – 20 of them.

After our swim, we saw her standing a hundred meters down the beach, phone up, filming the sea. Perhaps live streaming. She looked in our direction and gave us a thumbs up. Clearly pleased that we could finally see the orcas, with her assistance. On our count, there were more than 20 of them, all over the bay. The interesting thing about these orcas is that they were definitely dolphins. We gave her a thumbs up. She look well pleased.

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Photograph of the day: Kit skipped bath and had an outdoor shower instead. Here’s Jess blowing raspberry kisses, sending Kit into hysterics.