Orcas! Orcas, Ahoy!

With May comes many things: flowers, my tax rebate, moving, and the realization that I better step things up if I want to have my BC Bingo card completed on time.

What, you didn't know about BC Bingo? Actually, that's perfectly understandable, because I just made it up. The centre square is "Free," like all bingo cards, but the other squares include "Make Breakfast Quinoa" and "Complain about Albertans." And another square: "See orcas off the side of the ferry." Fortunately, I can dab that one off with the ole Bingo Bright, because this past Sunday a pod of orcas was spotted off the Spirit of British Columbia, the vessel that was transporting my slightly dopey self back to Victoria.

The Captain came over the P.A- we would be passing a pod of orcas off the starboard side soon. Hearing, perhaps, the lack of shuffling, he helpfully clarified, "the right-hand side of the boat." We landlubbers dutifully made our way to the right-board side.

Part of me felt foolish for going. I felt like a tourist. Not the savvy Victorian I was, a Victorian who has seen both Free Willy AND Free Willy 2, and is thus well-versed in the biology, symbology and mythology of orcas. But then I saw them ducking underneath the water, jumping up, and looking black, white and beautiful. They moved on, we moved on, and suddenly I had a new sympathy for the sea parks I had just read about in "The Killer in the Pool." I still think keeping killer whales in captivity is wrong, that it insults their intelligence and our humanity to do so. But I understand why the sea park owners do it, and why so many of us go to see them. Wanting to keep an animal that beautiful is no weak thing, even if that desire translates, on a practical level, into making them smile as grubby children pet their tongues.