On this occasion, I\u2019d free-dived quite deep and found myself looking up toward the surface as mother and child swam into view.<\/p>\n
Noticing my strategic position below them, I\u2019m sure I had just become the subject of that day\u2019s lesson in playful showing off.<\/p>\n
As the two approached, the mum rotated as she glided by and continued swimming upside-down. The youngster, swimming tail-to-nose in front of her, followed her lead, and together they drifted down to me and then alongside.<\/p>\n
At first, I thought they would simply swim on, bringing an already beautiful encounter to a close. But then something unexpected happened. In a movement worthy of some exquisitely choreographed ballet, the young orca completed a full turn, circling back around its mum. The pair spiralled around each other up toward the surface before slipping off into the blue beyond.<\/p>\n
How humbling, if only for a moment, to feature in their awareness, to be the focus of their attention, and to witness so playful a gesture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On this occasion, I\u2019d free-dived quite deep and found myself looking up toward the surface as mother and child swam into view. Noticing my strategic position below them, I\u2019m sure I had just become the subject of that day\u2019s lesson in playful showing off. As the two approached, the mum rotated as she glided by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9713,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3359,3361,2391,3363,749,2380,3358,2386,3366,2389],"class_list":["post-9712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-arctic","tag-baby","tag-fjords","tag-marinemammals","tag-mother","tag-norway","tag-oceanlife","tag-orca","tag-orcinusater","tag-skjervoy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9714,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9712\/revisions\/9714"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wetshutter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}