Whales, whales, and more whales
Yep, I've just come down from the back verandah to tell you about seeing at least two (possibly three) BIG blue whales cavorting off the coast, through our telescope. Magnificent! I'm only sorry that Michael's not here to have seen them too...
What appeared to the naked eye as a very small white wave-crest at a distance turned out to be, after considerable magnification, big whales breaching and playing off Split Solitary Island. You get a real sense of them having fun: they were slapping the water with their side flippers, and leaping out of the water, frontways, backwards and twisting as they leapt. It may sound a bit crazy, but I could almost feel the joy of air on their skin and the currents of water as they swam... I wonder if leaping out of the water for a whale is a bit like paddling in the sea for a human: a brief encounter with another world, one in which you are not equipped to survive, but which you find exciting and envigorating. This group really did seem to be playing: usually if they're feeding, especially near the surface like that, there are flocks of birds following the fish but there were just a couple of lazy gulls flapping around and it didn't look like feeding. Through the telescope I could even see the black bulk of them just under the water as they slowly swam around, blowing through their blow-holes. It was great watching them.
Eventually, though, I had to stop: there are disadvantages to clamping one eye to a telescope on a bright day: when you stop looking through it and try to use both eyes, you find that one pupil is more dilated than the other and - elderly as I am - it took a while to settle down so that I could focus normally again! I don't yet need bifocal glasses, but I am noticing (have done for a couple of years) how difficult it is for me to change focal distance... And I also realised that it's just gone TEN YEARS since I had those awful eye haemorrhages! Amazing - ten years ago I moved back to Bristol, leaving my soon-to-be-ex husband in a psychiatric institution in Chichester, and started work for Motionbase down at Ashton Gate. I'd only been in my new job for 4 days when my left eye haemorrhaged and I ended up spending a week in the Bristol Eye Hospital. I had four haemorrhages in all: three in my left eye and one in my right eye, and it's very noticeable to me when I look through the telescope: there's lots of residual 'muck' floating around in both vitreous humours, which make seeing a bit of an effort sometimes. After ten years I don't suppose any of it is going to dissipate now.
What appeared to the naked eye as a very small white wave-crest at a distance turned out to be, after considerable magnification, big whales breaching and playing off Split Solitary Island. You get a real sense of them having fun: they were slapping the water with their side flippers, and leaping out of the water, frontways, backwards and twisting as they leapt. It may sound a bit crazy, but I could almost feel the joy of air on their skin and the currents of water as they swam... I wonder if leaping out of the water for a whale is a bit like paddling in the sea for a human: a brief encounter with another world, one in which you are not equipped to survive, but which you find exciting and envigorating. This group really did seem to be playing: usually if they're feeding, especially near the surface like that, there are flocks of birds following the fish but there were just a couple of lazy gulls flapping around and it didn't look like feeding. Through the telescope I could even see the black bulk of them just under the water as they slowly swam around, blowing through their blow-holes. It was great watching them.
Eventually, though, I had to stop: there are disadvantages to clamping one eye to a telescope on a bright day: when you stop looking through it and try to use both eyes, you find that one pupil is more dilated than the other and - elderly as I am - it took a while to settle down so that I could focus normally again! I don't yet need bifocal glasses, but I am noticing (have done for a couple of years) how difficult it is for me to change focal distance... And I also realised that it's just gone TEN YEARS since I had those awful eye haemorrhages! Amazing - ten years ago I moved back to Bristol, leaving my soon-to-be-ex husband in a psychiatric institution in Chichester, and started work for Motionbase down at Ashton Gate. I'd only been in my new job for 4 days when my left eye haemorrhaged and I ended up spending a week in the Bristol Eye Hospital. I had four haemorrhages in all: three in my left eye and one in my right eye, and it's very noticeable to me when I look through the telescope: there's lots of residual 'muck' floating around in both vitreous humours, which make seeing a bit of an effort sometimes. After ten years I don't suppose any of it is going to dissipate now.
posted by Sara Bowen at 4:55 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home