17 October. Kayaking with dolphins

17 October. Kayaking with dolphins

P1060234car(1)My beautiful Byron,

Another Thursday meet on this lovely blog ‘Letters to Byron’. I am in a coffee shop in Dana Point. Autumn has begun, but it is still 26C, and sunny.

I chose this picture of us from that visit when we stayed in the New Forest and drove their in my convertible with the roof down. What fun.

Five years later, I have the most exciting story to share.

last Sunday, Rob, (Masons dad) invited us to go kayaking. He has five kayaks, two paddle-boards and one prone board. Paddle boarding is very cool. Its like a big surfboard that you stand on and you use a long paddle to paddle along. Once you get your balance sorted its fantastic. A prone board is similar, except you lie prone. And paddle with your hands. And the kayaks are single seaters. So we each had our own kayak. And we set out from Dana Point, into the Pacific.

We paddle out into the sun, and so the return leg is not so hard. The sun glare is pretty harsh. I wear a UV shirt (Like the one I got for you in California) and a hat and sunglasses. And we do like one hour outward and one hour back. So, we were quite far out when I suddenly heard a sound like a ‘Whoosh’. Someone breathing out hard.
Like ten feet away from me (That’s about 2 meters) were a pair of dolphins, breaching in unison. And as I watched, I saw dozens more. A whole pod of dolphins passing right past me.P1110430daddybynicks I sat watching for about five minutes as they all passed by, almost touching distance away.
For a moment I thought of jumping in the water and swimming with them, but I remembered that a great white shark attacked a kayak last week nearby, off Catalina island. His tooth that broke off on the kayak was two and a half inches long. The kayaker was pretty shaken up but he managed to not fall in the water.  So – a pretty big shark in these waters just last week. I decided not to jump in with the dolphins. And also, the water is too cold for my liking. I like warmer water for swimming.

Rob and the others were quite far back, so they didn’t get into the path of the dolphins. But boy I enjoyed it as a wow experience. My first thought was, I wish you could have been there. They are so cool. The radiate an energy of joy. And when they breath out, the sound just like humans. Of course you know they are mammals, and have some super intelligence.

After our fun kayaking we went for lunch at Nicks. And here is a picture of you and me at Nicks.

I cant wait to take you kayaking – and for a meal at Nicks.

Hoping to get some news about this December.

Miss you,
Love you,
Daddy

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