Meeting mermaids - it's true

Dear Friends – calming down enough to write has been a little bit of a struggle recently thanks to Klady and SirD filling my days and nights with activities, trips, excursions, an inaugural camping trip and even my very own holiday! Of course all these adventures have now given me plenty of content to share with you in due course, but the hottest news is my very recent encounter with mermaids – yes really!

It all started around mid-afternoon. Perched high on the bed surveying my realm and with a perfect view overlooking our bay, I noticed strange movements in the water.

Streaks of white water were appearing in the shallows, running counter to the outgoing tide.

And then the fish started leaping.

A school of huge salmon (I reckon each fish weighed about 5kg) was racing towards the shore and as they swam many were jumping and twisting high above the waterline.

From time to time, the salmon were accompanied by other smaller fishy leapers. It was as if the water was boiling with fish of all sizes, all bent on a suicide mission to the shallows. In all our time living on the water, I had never seen anything like this.

Klady and BestE had been playing mahjong through the morning. Barking loudly, I alerted them this potential scaly invasion. They both raced to the shore to see what the fuss was all about. It was then we discovered the cause of this piscatorial panic: racing up the bay and through the deep channel came a series of black fins.

Dolphins!

Twenty or more dolphins and their friends were on the hunt and they too started their leaping, curling and splashing.

The chase was on but surely the fish would be safe in the shallower water given that the dolphins would be beached if they continued? Absolutely correct.

All at once, the commotion stopped; the waters calmed; the salmon were safe and the dolphins turned around and lazily swam 50 metres down the channel to deeper waters.

We kept watching as the pod it went on its way, taking its time to lazily surf through small waves and I’m sure that they were laughing at how easily they managed to scare the fish.

The salmon were obviously breathing a sigh of relief and were pleased at how they had managed their clever escape. In response, the school ever so slowly, started gliding back into the deeper waters.

BestE, Klady and I watched in awe as the lines of salmon cut though the top of the waves leaving trails of bubbles. And suddenly another black fin appeared. Ominously, this time behind the departing fish.

One dolphin had stayed behind, where the salmon couldn’t detect him and the hunt was on again – but now oh so easy!

Our predator chased the panicking fish straight down the channel and into the mouths of the waiting dolphins and the feast was on.

What an awesome sight it was watching this spectacle of dolphins working together to capture their meal with few having to use a lot of their energy in the hunt.

But what about the mermaids?

As the feast was nearing the end, it was then that I saw my first mermaids.

While the dolphins were celebrating with leaps and jumps, two mermaid tails appeared straight out of the water, waving backwards and forwards. They were vertical. I knew instantly that they were mermaids as their tails weren’t dolphin huge and only mermaids can do handstands in the water and wiggle their tails straight up.

You may disagree with me but I know that dolphins don’t have arms and so they can’t do handstands!