When I was a child I had a strange dream. I was standing out on a pier, similar to the one at Huntington Beach in California, and there were several tourists casually milling about. Someone over by the side gasped and yelled about something in the water, and everyone, including myself, went over to look. I climbed up and leaned over the railing and looked down. The sea was a this kind of deep turquoise, milky and luminous at the same time. Through it I could see the shapes of several large forms slowly gliding through the water.
It was so amazing. So many sea creatures! So many fish! Sharks! Whales!!! I wanted to get a better look so leaned out juuust a little bit more, and then before I knew it I lost my balance (or perhaps I felt a little push?) and was falling—-right down towards the water! Panic ensued as I tumbled through the air and down down down, sploosh! Into the sea. I plunged down deep, almost to the bottom, got my bearings and then looked around. The water was this amazing azure colour with sunlight streaming through and I could see the forms of the whales going by, feeling massive, like enormous dirigibles. My panic subsided as I realized nothing was coming to eat me, and I soon realized that I must be breathing underwater since I didn’t feel like I needed to go to the surface. I started to swim upwards and towards the whales as if pulled by a magnetic draw and as I got closer I felt like they were sending me this deep feeling of peace. I felt like I belonged there and they wanted to show me something, and so I started to swim with them to wherever they would take me. And then my mother woke up and I was terribly upset with her for ruining only the best dream of my life. But luckily for me, a week, or a month, or a year later (I don’t recall now) I did have the dream again. And then again. It was one of just a few that was recurrent.
And so it was that I felt like, after many a long year of not having this dream anymore, that at 11:11 am last Saturday, when I took this video standing on the land and looking out at the Inlet, I had to pinch myself to make sure I wasn’t dreaming of swimming out to sea with the whales once more.
How many orcas do you count? It seems to me at least three? And is that a baby orca I spot with the little fin? 🥹 It would be great to know which pod this is and which individuals.