Although not exactly a story about freediving, (I wish it was!) I think it's a story you'll all enjoy. We all feel an affinity with the mammals that live in the aquatic portion of our planet, as well as at least an interest, if not a facination, with the predators that roam the land.
Here's a quick message I fired off to our Freedive Toronto list last Saturday. It starts the story off nicely:
______________________________________
Sat. Aug 8'04
1005 Central (GMT-5)
Hey gang,
I'm up in Churchill MB at the moment. When I found out that I was on my way up here, I started looking for interesting things about the locale. Of course it's the Polar Bear capital of the world, and there are bears present at the moment While I haven't seen any yet, some people in the resturant this morning got chased back to their car while they were down at the water!
The other thing that I didn't know about Churchill is that it is one
of the best locations for Beluga whales to give birth to their calves in July and August due to the warmth of the Churchill river. There are literally thousands of them here! I went down to the water yesterday and there were constantly 10-20 of them in sight at any one time. I saw hundreds in the 30 min that I was at the water. I packed a wetsuit, mask and fins and have been trying to get a zodiac to take me out to dive with them, but there's a stiff wind out of the NE today making the conditions unfavorable. Shore dives are out of the question due to the tide fighting the huge river. Unknown (to me anyway) currents and the possibility of being swept out onto Hudson Bay or upriver (almost as bad with the bears) make having a boat and guide a must. They assure me that if the conditions were favourable I'd be diving with the whales right now, but they're not
I will however go out on a bigger boat to see the whales a little closer up in about an hour, but they won't allow a swim off that boat... I think I've run out of options as I've gotta leave this evening for Toronto.
I'll post pictures and more details as soon as I can!
Aaron
________________________________________
