Lisa's Letters from La La Land: 2013

I have a real passion for water… not just any water, but more specifically – sea water.

I live beside it, I photograph it at every opportunity and I hear it when I fall asleep.

I honestly believe it fixes a myriad of ills just by merely standing with your toes in it.

So when the day dawned for our tour to San Diego Sea World, I was keen as mustard. I LOVE sea creatures, but I also have this philosophical issue with having them housed away from their natural habitat. It is always an issue for me visiting a zoo or marine park. I desperately want to see these beautiful creatures, but something inside tells me I should be letting them all go.

So I content myself with the knowledge that my entrance fee is helping us all learn more about them in order to protect them in the wild. That’s the only way I can reconcile it.

That aside, on arrival, I leapt from the bus, snapped up a map and was ready to discover stuff.

I’ve visited my own country’s Seaworld on multiple occasions, but I knew that this was going to be so so different – if only by the sheer size of the place, and I will admit it – I was pumped to see it all, and much much more importantly – photograph it all.

I always have the same quandary in a new place… shall I go left or right? But invariably I end up going anti-clockwise around the park, and so it was today, I made note of the important stuff on the map, like the closest loos and oddly, closest defibrillators and headed for my first port of call to the right, the animal connections pavilion.

Now this is the one that if I were at home, I’d give a big miss – you know, the local stuff. At home I’d expect to see kangaroos, emu’s, goanna’s and farm animals. But I’m so glad I stopped in here.

I can’t stress enough how much I love frogs… and the first thing I saw here were poison dart frogs from South America… way cool folks ( they’re on my bucket list to see in the wild). Followed by capybaras ( hmm… bit smelly, but then most rodents are) huge exotic bugs and then outside was the most beautiful Macaw.

I wandered past the impressive Atlantis ride, but decided it was too early in the day to be soaked to the skin, so I continued my quest to the right, where the Wild Arctic Ride was a walk-on, and without knowing a single thing about it, in I went.

In hindsight, this could have been a grave mistake on my part, and when I’m in the back row buckling into the seatbelt, the same thought crossed my mind. But it turned out to be a flight simulator ride with beautiful arctic scenery and a story I took little/no notice of.

The exit of the ride feeds you into the viewing area for first the upstairs then downstairs view of the Beluga whale, then the most massive walrus that for some reason just wanted to view you upside down through the glass( real character this big boy had), then the beautiful Polar Bear that we tend to forget is an apex predator.

I loved all three, but I could have stood and watched the Beluga whales all day. Standing there for what must have been an age, you could totally imagine they were trying to tell you something through that glass. Beautiful gentle giants.

Right I turned again, and voila, another of my BIG loves – penguins. This exhibit was one of the best I’ve seen and given the extreme high temperature outside, this was doubly wonderful travelling on a travelator past what essentially is a big freezer filled with the most magnificent penguins. In fact, I was so taken with watching them, I forgot to take photos on the first pass, so walked back to the start of the travelator not once, but 3 times, to observe and photograph these not so little beauties.

Sigh… penguin love.

Dragging myself away, with only a cursory look at the cute little puffins in the same exhibit, I decided it was time a quick snack before making my way to the Shamu stadium for the show.

And this show is the one that I have the most issues with. While I really don’t agree with such massive mammals being housed in captivity, I just couldn’t wait to see them so close.

Despite that particular war raging in my head, I found myself a prime position with excellent photographic opportunities just outside the splash zone ( see… for someone who opposes these shows, I had given the best ‘use’ of it much thought) and I can honestly say I was all but salivating imagining the shots I was going to get… seriously… I was giddy with the thought of what was going to be housed in my camera within the next 30 minutes. These were going to be the shots I would have blown up and made into a canvas.

I was like a little kid, almost unable to sit still in my seat. The show began and I was thrilled to the back teeth… really. Thrilled. This had the potential to be the most amazing part of the day. Camera firmly set to 10 consecutive shots when I press the shutter, I was ready for anything.

And then it happened.

Flat battery.

(Don’t panic Lisa, muddle around in your too-full back pack and fish out the expensive spare tucked in the zipper pocket for just such an occasion and all will be well. You won’t miss much. )

New battery in.

Oh. Dear. Lord.

Flat Battery #2.

This could not be happening. Oh no… the audience was getting pummelled with water and I was not getting it on film.

Right!

A deep calming breath, putting the devastation on hold, I pulled myself together and tried to commit the rest of the amazing show to memory.

And it was truly an awesome display of what these magnificent animals are capable of. The power it must take to launch bodies that size out of the water with such force is beyond my imagination.

And they do it, because we ask them to.

I thanked them for their efforts in my head.

As the most colossal crowds I think I’ve ever seen dispersed back into the park, I did something I never do. I deviated.

Without my calculated photographic assault plan in play, I was a loose cannon wandering in a zig zag pattern for the rest of our time in the park. I wandered clear across the park to the turtle encounter and shark tubes… and they were magnificent… And I pondered the angles I’d have been taking the shots on – until I got out of my own head and just enjoyed it.

Then it was on to the sea lion feeding area, where I watched cheeky sea lions work the crowds without the unsuspecting fish-givers even knowing it. Very very clever animals.

I zigged and zagged through the many rides, not riding any of them for some reason, and came across the Bat Ray feeding enclosure.

Oh…. Now, here is where Lisa got her groove back. In this massive, and I mean, massive pond, no deeper than knee height, were varying sized bat rays.

LOTS of Bat Rays.

I’ve swum with rays in Tahiti, but this time, I was going to feed them. So with tiny little fishies in hand, I kneeled along side toddlers and leaned over the edge of the pond and offered up the gourmet ray delights. I was so taken with them I lost track of time and sat there for a long while feeling their rough skin when them came over to the edges, and they seemed to enjoy the encounter as much as we all did. They certainly had zero fear of those hundreds of hands all under the edges of the water. Possibly due to the fact that they often held lunch.

The lateness of the day finally dawned on me, and I scooted back to the Dolphin stadium to watch the final show, where I met up with the rest of the group.

Despite the hiccup of the show stopping for some time due to ‘technical difficulties’ it was our last hurrah for our day in the park and cheered heartily when the people in the splash zone got soaked once again. Before we knew it, it was time to all wearily wander back to the shops near the exit to stock up on yet more magnets, t-shirts and mugs before boarding the bus back to Anaheim.

Tony Roma’s was the lucky dinner recipient of our increasingly rowdy group of Aussies, where a fun, but late night ensued prior to yet again collapsing into bed into either sleep or a coma – at this point, it could have been either.