Got up and headed to Sea World half an hour before it
opened. I thought I’d get there early to avoid the queues. Obviously everyone
else had thought the same. The car park was already half full, or half empty,
depending on your optimistic/pessimistic out look. I joined the queue for the
ticket office and got to the front. The woman said is was $80 to get in, such a
huge amount of money, but I paid and went in anyway.
I headed straight to the Sea Lion show which started at
10.15am and I can honestly say I have never laughed so much. The sea lions and
seals were fantastic. The actually didn’t need any prompts to do their tricks.
I’ve been to Sea World in Florida, and the animals there are so dependent on
their trainers. There has to be a verbal command and a whistle before they’ll
do anything, but here they just ‘do.’
The show was set up as an investigation into why there was
no fish left in the local area. It highlighted key over fishing issues and the
male seal, Burnie, played a detective alongside the two human police men. If
you took away the fur, and the fishy smell, and the flippers, he almost acted
like a human. He put his flipper over his eyes when he was supposed to, and pretended
to be looking for fish by putting his head in the water and leaving it there
for ages. The very act itself was hilarious enough, but when he brought his
head out, he shook it, got on his back flippers and held his front flippers up
in the air and shrugged (I’m aware they don’t have shoulders by the way) I
literally burst into laughter, as did the rest of the crowd.
Next, Burnie went into a fish compactor to look for clues,
and the door closed by accident. As it did, the machine buzzed and as the door opened
again, three second later, a baby sea lion popped out. This charade went back
and forth a few times and then on the fourth time, the police man (obviously a
trainer) went to open the door, and couldn’t. It had broken and while they
tried to keep their composure, you could see the moment of hilarity that was
about to ensue on stage. They looked at each other and then did a nervous
giggle. To the amusement of everyone, Burnie came out of one of the doors and
sneaked up on the two of them, trying to open the door.
I knew it wasn’t scripted, you can just tell sometimes, and
they laughed hysterically. Burnie went over to the door, got up on two front
flippers and kicked the door with his back flippers. The trainers laughed with
us and they carried on, but I got the impression the escapade had put the
trainers off of their stride and hadn’t affected Burnie at all.
The show ended and the crime was solved. It was actually a
really good show and I jumped up and beat the queues out of the arena and
headed straight to the dolphin show at the other end of the park. I got myself
a nice central seat and treated myself to come popcorn. (I didn’t want it, but,
yes, as you can imagine, the vendor was pretty). So I ate half of it and then
shared it with the four year old next to me (her parents had agreed, I wasn’t
being some kind of creepy stalker).
As I said earlier, I’d been to Sea World in Florida in 2004
(I think it was) and seen the dolphin and killer whale show there but I always
remembered it as very American and quite “lets just keep high fiving the
dolphins” and pretend that’s a trick. I hoped this wasn’t the same, but I
guessed it wouldn’t be. The show started, and instead of having a narrative, it
was much more about trying to teach the audience about dolphins, their habitats
and how to protect them. I actually found it really interesting. Did you know that
in their tails there is a blood vessel which is as wide as a 5p, one of the
widest in the animal kingdom (in comparison to its body size).
The dolphins were all introduced to us, and the seven of
them did a little trick each before they disappeared. They were gone for about
15 seconds and all of a sudden the first one appeared, pushing a person with
his nose straight up into the air. They all did this, in turn, all seven of
them, until there was seven gorgeous (and pretty similar looking) guys in
wetsuits standing next to their dolphins. I really REALLY need to meet the
person in charge of their recruitment and human resources.
I later learnt that a trainer is paired to a dolphin and
only that trainer is allowed to swim with that dolphin. Other trainers can feed
and look after other dolphins, but they’re only allowed to train their own. It’s
to do with bonding and trust and stuff like that. It was very interesting. The
dolphin closest to me was called Starbucks much to the amusement of the girl
behind me who kept saying “like the coffee shop, like the coffee shop”. I
really wanted to turn around and say “NO, you fool, like the character out of
Moby Dick” but I thought that would be antagonising.
The music got all inspirational and the dolphins did more
tricks and I lost count on the flips and twirls they did. It was fabulous. The
talker guy said the dolphins wanted to say goodbye because they were tired, and
they all did a parade with their trainers raising one fin out of the water and
shaking it. This was my queue to get out and I missed the massive hoards again.
Result.
Headed straight to the petting pool, which surprisingly
enough is where you can pet stingers (sting rays) sea cucumbers, fish and star
fish. It was actually lovely. Sea cucumbers feel like, well cucumber. Star fish
feel like a rock and stingers feel like, jelly. It wasn’t an all together
unpleasant experience really. I did give evils to the big sting ray in the
middle of the pool and wondered if he was the one who had killed Steve Irwin.
Don’t worry, I don’t think it was, but I hope the message gets back to him
somehow.
The Polar Bears and Penguins are next to each other in a
large polar exhibit. (I should, at this point, point out that in real life,
polar bears and penguins would never meet. One is from the North Pole, and the
other from the South.) Alas, they weren’t in the same enclosure so they weren’t
going to start gangs against each other. The polar bears were incredibly
boring, but massive and lovely to look at. Here’s a fun fact... Did you know
that female polar bears are in hibernation when they give birth, and as a
result, don’t wake up for the birth! I know a few (all) girls who’d love to
just wake up one morning and have a baby, instead of the whole labour thing.
Fantastic. The babies feed themselves on the mother’s milk (while she’s still
asleep) and it stays this way for up to 3 months until she wakes. Fascinating.
I moved onto the penguins. They have three types here. King,
Rockhopper and Emperor. I think that’s what they’re called. As with all animals
in captivity, there were a few penguins doing a circuit around the outside of
the enclosure (which is like a big freezer kept at -12 and has snow and everything). This always annoys
me, and I really don’t like watching animals do it. I took a picture or two and
left. I actually really like zoos, but sometimes, they enclosures aren’t big
enough, and it’s so unfair to keep animals locked up, especially if you could
release them into the wild.
Anyway.
I left Sea World (via the Sponge Bob Square Pants Parade and
the Dinosaur world – both as unremarkable as each other) and went to the beach.
Another three hours of gorgeous people watching and then it started to rain, so
I ran for cover (just made it) and returned to the campsite to see who my new
neighbours for the night were. I write this, and they still haven’t arrived, so
I guess I might be left alone again, but we’ll see.
I shall write again soon. I’m driving to Brisbane on Tuesday
to meet up with a friend of mine whom I used to work with. I’ve not seen her in
about 7 months so we’ll have a good old catch up hopefully!
Until the next time x
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