CRIKEY!!!

Almost 2 weeks ago to this moment, I was silently, sleekly, deftly, and casually crusing along, RIGHT ABOVE MANY STINGRAYS!!! To make matters even more exciting, I was reaching out and touching them, grabbing them, and generally enjoying my harrassment of them. In my mind, I was thinking, (with and Australian accent) "Oh Crikey, look at this little beauty! She's just swimming along, probably looking for food or a mate. She's got this little barb right here that would cause quite a lot of pain if stung by it. Gotta stay away from that end!"

Then, I find out, only a couple of short days later, my idol in many ways, my mentor in the handling of many animals, and my Australian accent teacher dies from a barb to the heart from a stingray.

So it begs the question, did I defy death? I'm pretty sure I did. In fact, I think I'm quite a wildlife icon of our time. I'm waiting for calls from the major networks in Australia to fill the void left by the untimely death of our croc-hunting friend.

I'll miss you Steve Irwin. We all will.