Purely Personal: Of Willy, Shamu and San Diego

I wish we had watched Free Willy, a whale movie in theme park setting, before we did the Sea World in San Diego. I reckon Sidharth and Nikhil would then have had a better understanding of Shamu the whale at the Sea World.As it happened,they came out of the Shamu Show drenched, bleary eyed with sea water, and blaming it all on the poor whale.

Nikhil said he didn't want to revisit Shamu who had splashed the pool water on him. Sidharth took it sportingly; said it was fun getting soaked at the Shamu Show.
We were seated on the sixth of the first 12 rows designated the 'soak zone'. We were at the venue an hour before the show,to be able to get seats upfront. But then Nikhil did not expect Shamu to do what he did to him and his clothes.

But then after watching Free Willy and the sorry plight of the whale in the movie Sidharth/Nikhil changed their mind on Shamu. Sidharth wondered who, and where Shamu's mom was. What, if a mean man drained the water from Shamu's pool, as he did, from Willy's pool? Who would save Shamu, as Jessie did Willy at the movie ? Wouldn't the whales at the Sea World want to get out into the open sea?

When she heard of their concerns, Sidharth/Nikhil's mom reckoned that it was just as well they didn't watch Free Willy earlier. If they had , they wouldn't have wanted to visit the Sea World.

A highlight of their San Diego trip was the visit to the beach, from where Sidharth and Nikhil brought back a fistful of seashells. They spotted several seals at the beach; it was the world's only beach where the law gives a free run to the seals, and an official notice says seals can move about anywhere there, and they cannot be legally removed or disturbed by people.

Seals are a tourist attraction on the waterfront of Hyatt Residency, from where you get a water taxi to the Sea World. Jeniffer, who piloted our taxi boat knew a thing or two about seals. She told us they brought in a boatload of fish caught in mid-sea and dumped them every other day all along the hotel waterfront. Which explains why seals flock to the water front.