Today we made use of the early summer weather and spent the morning at the beach. While my children and husband played in a giant hole dug in the sand, I decided to go for a swim. We'd gone into the water together a few minutes earlier, but the adults only made it in up to our ankles.
The water at Burlington Beach takes forever to get deep. By the time it was up to my hips the people on shore were the size of sand flies. I was watching a school of minnows swim by when, suddenly, I came face to leg with an enormous creature. The fish, which was about the size of a small dog, swam right up to me. I gasped and jumped a little. The fish had the same startled reaction (if you can picture gasping without lungs and jumping without legs). I lost interest in swimming and ran to tell my family what I'd found.
A passing kayaker identified the beast as a carp looking for a mate (sorry, fish, I'm married). Wikipedia says the carp is related to the goldfish. Now that I think about it, it did kind of look like those big goldfish they have at the Mandarin, only this one was much larger, and less festively coloured.
Of course, when I waded out with my family to show off my discovery, my gigantic swimming friend had already disappeared into the deep.
5 comments:
You should post a picture of a carp. There creepy looking. I would have screamed
You are a braver woman than I!
the big (purse eating) fish at the mandarin are Koi, which are carp. Koi are just domesticated ornamental carp, bred to be pretty. Goldfish where also bred from carp.
Just some fish facts for you all to enjoy. Generally I'm not afraid of fish, but when they catch me by surprise I usually jump a little. Hows the water, I was thinking of biking down and going for a swim, but I wasn't sure it would be warm enough yet, since normally its not until late July.
There's a Canadian picture book called "The Christmas Carp" I think. Which leads me to believe the fish is quite yummy. Never heard of a carp attack so I think we're all safe in the water, at least from fish. City of Burlington is not testing for E coli till next week though and recommend you don't swim without the testing. Easy and lameo, lameo for them to say.
The water is a good temperature. Cool, but not too cold. There's some algae though, which could turn off some. And, of course, giant carp.
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