To Qila, With Love

I've been in a pretty good mood these days and I think it's partly because Vancouver has been nice and sunny lately. So the other day I thought I'd take advantage of the good weather and head down to one of my favourite places in the city - the Vancouver Aquarium. I've always loved it there because I'm utterly amazed by marine life and their whole underwater world. It's SO the opposite of our life here on dry land, and I find it all quite fascinating.

My fascination with what's going on beneath the surface was solidified a few years ago when I became a PADI-certified open water scuba diver down in the Caribbean. I'll never forget my first dive. It's an absolutely *insane* feeling to know that you are Breathing. Under. Water. And, everything is so colorful down there that you find yourself believing that every colour ever invented must have found its origins along a reef somewhere. Especially if you dive in tropical waters. I know that sometimes when you look at photos taken underwater it just kinda looks like it's all one colour, usually blue-ish green. But trust me - when you're actually under the water it's more colorful than you can possibly imagine.

The Vancouver Aquarium houses not only marine life, but lots of others as well - reptiles, exotic birds and, I believe, a sloth. Here's some pics of what I saw:

The Vancouver Aquarium also keeps several beautiful Beluga whales (the white ones). And it's just been announced one of the Belugas is pregnant! The lucky girl is Qila (pronounced Kee-lah). Apparently she had herself a whale of a time recently with one of the males and soon she's gonna have a baby beluga.

No word yet on the baby shower although I'm just so relieved that there won't be a decision to make on if I should buy her something pink or blue. I have a feeling it won't matter too much in the all-white world of the beluga. But one thing troubles me ... considering the current pastime of monitoring the physical progress of pregnant famous females (Angelina or J. Lo anyone?) I have a question - how on earth does one play "spot the baby bump" with a beluga? I'd be happy to hear any thoughts you have on that...

One final thing - last year a couple of sea otters at the Vancouver Aquarium gained worldwide fame after a video of their escapades was posted on YouTube by a visitor to the aquarium. There's no question that it's pretty darn cute, and alot of other people must agree since the video has been viewed nearly 10 million times already! Here it is: