Just Another Beautiful Day

I think it is important to constantly remind oneself to live each day to its fullest, look for the joy in life and to remember to enjoy what is in front of us and not worry about what is behind us or what might appear. A while back I had an amazing experience right in front of me.

Pelicans Flying over Marina Del Rey

Because of a bunch of other commitments I had not had the time to kayak for a few weeks. It would have been easy to say I had too much to do but I went down to Marina Del Rey to paddle with my fellow paddler, former student and world traveler Mary. We were having a great time with Mary telling me about her recent trip to Egypt (and you thought there wouldn’t be an African angle here) and we were both commenting on what a gorgeous winter day it was in Los Angeles.

As we reached our halfway point Mary said the only thing that is missing were dolphins. Just then I spied a huge flock of pelicans and seagulls in the water. This usually means there are fish nearby so we went to investigate. Within seconds we had dolphins swimming by us! But it got better. We followed the birds and soon we were in the middle of a feeding frenzy with pelicans dive bombing for fish around us, gulls yelling “mine mine” as they tried to get the pelicans to drop the fish and then about a dozen dolphins swimming all around us – with one coming out of the water to slap the surface with his head to attract the fish. We just sat there with our mouths open unable to speak as we witnessed this amazing site.

As I paddled home I realized how important it is to take a breath, look around and enjoy.