… and a Few Water Molecules Dancing in the Sunlight

Date: Author: Category: Australia, Australia, Travel, Uncategorized, Weekly Photo Challenge Tags: , , , , ,

In honour of World Oceans Day (how they need our help!), I thought I’d respond to this week’s “Fleeting” WP Photo Challenge with a sort of time-lapse of a whale I once saw.

We were maybe a mile out at sea;  my face in rictus from glee – for the last twenty minutes or so the whales had been playing with us.   Just over there, a couple flapped their flippers at me, beckoning  look!  look! DSCN4106 One drifted off, doing a few back flips and that elegant dive (banner shot, above), surfacing right here, beside the boat – flapping its flipper to begin a tail spin, just to show off. DSCN4132 After spinning and rising out of the water a good metre or so, quick as a flash – as if it were a trapeze artist, flying high in the air – it just seemed to let go, and disappeared.  No whale – just viscous water DSCN4122 and a few water molecules dancing in the sunlight! DSCN4124 The “official” photographs of that morning off the Sunshine Coast, Queensland – one of the most thrilling mornings of my life – were posted in honour of last year’s Oceans Day.   (I should try to get something new for next year!)

55 thoughts on “… and a Few Water Molecules Dancing in the Sunlight”

  1. how utterly wonderful!
    Is everything ready for the move?
    Thinking a lot about you recently as I look like having to leave mtlawleyshire – it’s become way too expensive for the likes of me, though I will be taking the fatte cattee with me, wherever I end up

    • Hey there Keira – lovely to see you! I’m all packed up, moved out of the house, but dragging my feet a bit about actually buying that ticket and getting on an aeroplane. I guess there’s no hurry, really, or pressure and I’m just not quite ready yet!

      How’s The Thesis – almost finished? Sad you’ll have to leave your MtLawleyshire but you and Fattee Cattee gotta live and if they keep raising the rent, it’ll could be lean pickin’s for a pussy cat for a while – unless you become a miner? No? You’re right – it’s too hot up there for you Keira. Looks as if a move is the best option.

      Take care and finish … 🙂

      • Don’t get me started on the thesis. My deadline has become negotiable due to the fact I have no supervisor. Honestly. Universities!! Don’t hear from my dupervisor so scant feedack on anything. It’s all very disheartening.
        I am thinking Manfurah as housing is still relatively affordable down there – I will miss Mt LawleryShire…
        Glad all your packing’s done. Hope your eventual departure is smooth, uneventual & you land somewhere you ca love.
        K xx

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    • You’re there, Christine – in an internet hotspot somewhere!?! I didn’t comment on your last post – with the gorgeous red earth and the glow of the early morning sun, thinking you were posting from the wilds. Looks like a stunning trip.

    • It happens quite frequently, I hear – so I understand your ‘jealousy’, especially when they were so close and in our faces. I daren’t ever go again, for fear we’ll draw a blank … 🙂

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  21. This is just wonderful! I am glad you love the sea like me, and celebrated World Oceans Day! My two trips whale-watching in Monterey, California were certainly the most thrilling moments of MY life too – watching a group of orcas hunting, and when three humpback whales approached our boat and were so close we could almost touch them! Beautiful moments, and as you know – just unforgettable and very emotional…

    • It’s interesting how emotional our response to them is, isn’t it? I wondered at it, at the time, and continue to do so whenever I look at the pictures, or read about the whales. I think it has something to do with their fragility, and the miracle of their survival. There they were, hunted to the edge of extinction, and there we are, just a few decades later, on a small boat in the ocean as these giants play around us – almost as though they’ve forgiven us, or hold no grudge at least.

  24. I just finished watching a TV show – somewhere in Africa – and was just telling myself how even remote rivers have been destroyed.
    Ocean life is incredible, I am always amazed by the behavior of fish, turtles, dolphins, and whales.
    It kills me to see so much plastic in the water. I really hate plastic.
    I see that those whales are not that far from shore. I love the tailspin photo from last year. It has to be hard to live with barnacles on your head.

    • Yes – I wonder if they make him cross-eyed! I’d have thought some enterprising fish would clean the barnacles off, but I see from the scarring that somehow they get cleaned off periodically. 🙂

  26. Yes, the oceans do need our help. We must stopt reating them like a vast dump.
    How fortunate to catch whales and for them to oblige with a show! Living so far inland, I’ve never seen one but sure would like to. Your photos and accompanying descriptions are good reasons why.

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