Magical Experience - Being one with Nature

I've always loved nature and all its animals and creatures.  I've never been one to deny this. We are constantly seeking balance in our lives. We look to our homes, jobs, and the environment and contemplate ways to find a connection that will bring peace, happiness, and harmony. Striving to become one with nature and the elements is a wonderful way to move toward this serenity, and tapping into the forces of nature can help to bring new perspective to our quest.

All life has value and purpose, yet many of us do not even take the time to sit outside in nature and receive the healing qualities it offers our body, mind, and spirit. And Oh what a magical experience we had today being one with nature.

We took our boys to the Shark and Ray Centre at Port Stephens to be one with nature and experience what it is like being in the water and being one with our beautiful creatures.  We learnt about the different types of species there are of Stingrays and Sharks today.  We got to be in the water with some of these species and actually have them swimming around our legs and having the opportunity to touch them and pat them.  WOW!  We were all amazed.

The stingrays were such majestic creatures.  So soft, so inquisitive and their little faces are so cute. We got the hand feed them and got big cuddles off the 350kg female.

We learnt alot of interesting facts today too.  

The normal everyday facts like how many species, what they eat, how long they grow and what their weight is, how many babies they have, etc.  But some really interesting facts were:

• Why the female is larger than the male, as the male has to suction onto the females back and if he were larger he would damage her back.
• Why they have barbs - for defense.  It takes 6 months for a barb to grow back.  The barb is venomous and can be dangerous to humans.  The ancient Greeks used to used the venom from the barbs as an anesthetic.
• The reason why a stingray is so soft and slimy is that it is covered with an 80% alcoholic coating and that the coating is awesome if you have cuts, just rub on the stingray.  Back in the pirates day, if pirates ran out of booze, they would catch a stingray and lick it until they became intoxicated.  

Too funny.  But what an experience!  Highly recommend it!