Astroblog: Delphinus

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Delphinus

Delphi us is a neat constellation near Aquilla the eagle. Its name is Latin for dolphin, and we got to see lots of its namesake today.

As I mentioned, the family took me out on a kayaking tour to celebrate my natal day. The days started out like many of the Chez Reynella trips, getting totally displaced on the way there. There are a lot of road works associated with the new Port freeway, and somehow our turnoff disappeared into a maze of detours and road works.

But we got there in the end. We were soon fitted out with life jackets and pretty fancy kayaks. The Betdeckererschnappender weisle and I have done a modest amount of canoing before, but this was the first time we were ever in kayaks with rudders. We had a great time playing with these, you pushed with your right foot to turn right, and left to turn left.

Unfortunately, the old sailors instinct that you turn the tiller left to turn right was strong in both of us, so we kept turning the wrong way. We paddled off towards the point opposite the launching ramp. The day was overcast (this is a good thing in summer, paddling for an hour and a half under fierce Sun is not as much fun as you might think), the air still and we glided across the water with faint plashes, even SmallestOne was entranced.

We watched a pod of dolphins in the distance, and became more excited as they swam close by us. We followed in their wake at a respectable distance as they were going upstream feeding (you don't want to get too close, so you don't spook them, and they were heading in the direction we wanted to go to reach the mangrove forrest anyway).

The all of a sudden there was another pod around us, dolphins were swimming under us and surfacing within arms reach. We shipped oars and sat quietly watching them splash and play around us. (Stuart, we were very careful not to hit the dolphins with a paddle). We just floated on the water appreciating these magnificent animals as they swam around us (there was even a young one in the pod), then swam off on their own business.

That magical moment stayed with us as we headed off to the mangrove forrest. For the rest of the trip, SmallestOne would burst out excitedly "Dolphins! BAABBBYYY Dolphins". It was a truly magnificent birthday gift.

(Admittedly, EldestOne was very worried when the dolphins swam under us, I had to remind him that the Simpsons Episode where the evil dolphins take over the world was fiction)

# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 11:29 pm

Comments:

Sounds like you had fun Ian. I only mentioned about the paddles because in NZ I accidentally kicked a dolphin with a flipper (swimfin). Dolphins really shouldn't swim up behind humans who are flapping about in the water ;-)

# posted by