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| My friend on her stand up paddleboard with dolphins. |
Our bay is home to many dolphins and quite often we see them right up close to the shore as we walk along the beach.
It was the dolphins, on a crisp June morning many years ago, that helped us fall in love with the bay. Already blown away by the endless empty beaches, we were lying under a tree on the icing-sugar sand, gazing at the unbelievable blue of the bay, when a group of dolphins appeared in front of us, just a few metres off the beach, surfing into the shore. They really seemed to be playing - catching the tiny breakers and leaping with delight.
Last night we went for our usual walk. I had spent most of the afternoon in a gruelling tourism meeting and needed a hit of sea air to remind myself why we live here and run this sometimes challenging business. (It's unusually quiet down here this winter in the B and B). One of my friends from the meeting had clearly had the same thought because there she was, despite the cool weather, riding the gentle waves at the mouth of the creek on her stand up paddleboard, a short distance away from us. I was waving and hollering to her when up popped the dolphins. Right underneath her.
Luckily Handy Husband had his handy camera in his pocket, so while I jumped up and down with unbridled, childlike enthusiasm at their proximity to her (and to us), he started snapping.
It's not unusual to see the dolphins so close. There are people in this village who make their living out of the reliability of seeing at least one pod every day somewhere in the bay, but as I say to HH every time we see them (and he laughs at me jumping up and down and pointing), the day I stop being excited about the dolphins is the day we pack up and go back to the city.
Anyway I'm supremely grateful to the dolphins. Who knows, without them we might not have fallen in love with the place, gone completely crazy one weekend and actually moved down here to live.
I've always fancied the idea of swimming with dolphins, but I also have a suspicion that it's not the done thing these days, like cuddling koalas. Not very eco-cool. What do you think? Can I?
