The fish are jumping!
Tonight’s paper has a story of a fisherman who caught a big-eye tuna yesterday while fishing off the Boulder Bank here in Nelson. A magnificent fish and an extremely rare catch in these parts. People commented on all the action right now: lots of small fish, kahawai and even kingfish. I can quite believe it, because look at this action from this morning.
At around 9 am I was alerted by the sound of water splashing, like a washing machine. It was a shoal of small fish being attacked from above and below, directly below us. I watched for a while, fascinated, then remembered to get my camera. I think I must have been quite excited, because these are not as sharp as they should have been. Here’s what I saw:
Merry Christmas!
And here’s a couple of (New Zealand) Christmas images to go with my best wishes:
Small dramas in ‘The Cut’
A strong northerly blew up on the weekend, coinciding with an outgoing tide. That’s usually a recipe for some reasonably large waves at the entrance to Nelson harbour. There were very few boats out, people had obviously heard the weather forecast. There was a bit of entertainment for watchers on the hill, however.
Orcas – a Nelson story
A couple of weeks ago, my wife woke me up just before seven when she returned from her run, simply buzzing! She had been running along the Nelson waterfront when she heard a huffing and puffing sound. She looked around and saw a couple of dolphins swimming towards the sea wall. But these dolphins got larger and larger as they approached the surface and their dorsal fins got higher and higher! It was an adult orca accompanied by a youngster. Suddenly there was a huge commotion, a massive flurry in the water and next thing a very large stingray leapt out of the water, crashing into the sea wall not far from where she was standing. It looked up at her but must have decided that she presented a much smaller risk so stayed there, remaining close to the sea wall, caressing it with one fin. It very carefully and…