A group of whale-watchers in Canada had their boat sink on them whilst watching whales. 5 dead, loads injured, the water, off the Canadian Pacific coast this time of year; 12 degrees. Or in Farenheit, Kelvin or any other scale: FUCKING FREEZING!!!!

But reading about this tragedy brought back some wonderful memories…

15 years ago we took a whale-watch trip from Victoria, Vancouver Island. Not far from where the disastrous vessel set sail from on Sunday. And we ‘drove’ out for about 30 miles because someone with a helicopter had spotted killer whales. Orcas (as ‘we’ call them). And this was no luxury, martini-sipping, sun-tanning trip. The boat was stripped bare and built for speed. Because although we knew where the Orcas were, they didn’t know we knew. And weren’t prepared to hang around waiting for a bunch of pasty Brits and Yanks with thousands of pounds worth of photographic equipment dangling round their necks.

We were very lucky. We found an entire ‘pod’ of whales, a family of about 60 Orcas, with a few other ‘fishes’ swimming with them, like dolphins and porpoises. You know, big grey fishes.

And because this was 15 years ago, mobile phones: a. didn’t work out there, and b. didn’t have cameras and videos fitted. So I had my faithful Sony Camcorder with me, to capture that moment. Or, to miss that moment because I was staring into a fucking camera instead of watching the majestic wonder of nature unfolding before me.

Everyone had a camcorder. Any parent not in possession of a video camera could be reported to Social Services for poor parenting.

As well as the wonderful videos taken of the whales, I made another, taken all the way back to base, as Mel and the ‘driver’ got into a… errr… a ‘debate’, shall we say. Which went like this:

Whale Watch Dude: have you seen Orcas before?

Mel: Oh yes, at Sea World, in Florida.

WWD: Oh! That’s terrible. Sea World is an evil place where wonderful animals are captive in claustrophobic conditions in which they die young and miserable.

Mel: Yeah, but its there, so we went and its not everyone that can afford to go whale watching when Sea World is so cheap and you get a free hat and 50% off your first 9 hot dogs and supersize coke with extra sugar.

WWD: but its cruel. People are better off watching on tv than going to evil places like Sea World.

Mel: though it encourages children to engage with beautiful animals, and Sea World does lots of conservation work with animals too.

WWD: they should never be captive, they’re unhappy and as an eco-warrior I’d rather they were only seen in the sea

Mel: well Shamu dived through a flaming hoop eating fish; you don’t see that out here. And she seemed to be smiling at the time.

for the full movie; come round for tea one day and I’ll fish out the dvd. No pun intended.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx