Wage slave by day, in the evenings my son in law is an avid surfer.
They don’t have a car, but so dedicated is he to his hobby that he walks all the way from Mt Cook to Lyall Bay with his surfboard under his arm. Yes, that’s THE Mt Cook, of recent devastating flooding, but they were lucky enough to escape any damage, and in fact slept through the entire night with no clue that it was even raining.
He elected to pass the long weekend at home rather than spending it up the coast with the in laws, at the beach house. Inexplicable, I know. On Saturday, he was out on the water when he felt something bumping his board. Looking down, he saw a large grey shape with a fin. Well, at this point, I’d be squealing like a little girl, and trying my very best to sprout wings and fly away. But from the way he tells it, he very quickly realised that it was an orca, and there was nothing to fear. The whale was just trying to surf the same wave he was, although not following the unwritten rule of surfing bros, i.e. I was here first. And that wasn’t the only rule broken, as my husband pointed out. It clearly states in council bylaws that people and whales must maintain a distance of at least 50 metres from each other at all times.
Obviously, there was no photographic evidence of this encounter, and although he’s a very trustworthy young man, we only had his say so about how the encounter played out, if it even took place at all. But then he sent us this screenshot, from an instagram post:
My first thought was, yep, he looks remarkably unfazed by his close encounter. I think Aaron’s comment, amusing though it was, was quite wide of the mark. Incidentally, “teko” is slang from the Te Reo word, which is something I didn’t know, referring here to a brown trouser moment.
The comment from Trance refers to the ANZAC trans Tasman rugby league game between the NZ Warriors and the Australian Dolphins, which was won by the home team, although it was apparently touch and go.
I have to say, there are times that I miss social media, and it’s this sort of thing that I used to enjoy, which really seems like harmless fun.
Here’s the episode from a different perspective:
