Have you ever had one of those “just stop moments”? Where nothing else matters except what you see and feel right now! We had one of those this morning………….
Sunrise is at 5.30 am, shortly after we were at our favourite fishing spot, which just happens to be at the southernmost tip of Placencia and just offshore of Placencia Caye. This is a natural deep channel between the Caribbean Sea and the lagoon and is well travelled by fisherman and boaters.
Toes lapped by the tiniest waves, my bait and line disturb the mirrored surface, the only sound is a few late crickets. ……… From the mercury still sea breaks a single dark fin, followed by the curve of a back, then another……….. the ripples disappear as do the fins, where are they? There!!!! They break the surface right in front of us, two, no three sets of fins, three curved backs, they break again this time we see the head…… are they watching us as closely as we are watching them?
They disappear from site, diving deep to navigate the channel perhaps or did they return out to sea? I hold my breath, still no fins………… there they are, through the channel into the lagoon side where the fishing appeared to be good, for them anyway. We watched as they breached, played and eventually disappeared from sight.
No matter how many times I am privileged to see these wonderful mammals, I will never tire of them. Dolphin encounters like these are as nature intended, a far cry from the intimacy that man forces upon them within the closed confines of their man made cages. To see this, to be in the right place to see these things is almost as if I have been released from one of those concrete pens. Life is about our experiences, not what we earn or who we know.
These are the moments that I will cherish and it these that I will remember in my final hours….. what will you remember?
A beautiful morning in placencia belize
