A story of whales at sunset – and the wonder of serendipity

Serendipity can give you one of those moments when you suddenly know what it is to be alive and happy.

But here’s the thing – sometimes you have to put yourself in a position where serendipity can occur.

The word itself was coined by Horace Walpole in 1754, and is presumed to come from a story of The Three Princes of Serendip, a Persian fairy tale in which the princes “were always making discoveries, by accident and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of”.

On Friday night I had such a moment. A supermoon was set to rise in the southeast around 5.45pm, so I rugged up against the cold and wandered down to my local beach at Kohimarama. The supermoon was clearly taking its time to come up, but I waited and waited, and was rewarded with a glorious sunset on the water – the camera on my phone doesn’t do it justice. It was magical.

And then the moment of serendipity happened. Gliding out of the deep came a pod of whales, surfacing like submarines just off the beach. They glided along, puffing and diving, probably in search of stingray. They were orcas with huge black dorsal fins that cut through the surface of the water as they moved close to a group of young English visitors braving the water for a swim.

The group were in a huddle, finding it warmer to be down under the water that out of it. One of the whales came within two or three metres of the group, but they didn’t move. I spoke to them afterwards, their teeth chattering with the cold and excitement. They said they weren’t sure what was happening till they saw a fin coming straight towards them. “It was there before we had time to react,” they said.

It’s a story they will take home with them – their own serendipitous moment when they swam with whales in New Zealand on a freezing winter’s evening.

And then the supermoon came up, huge and bright in the southeast, with the craters easily picked out by the naked eye. I floated home on a high and it lasted all weekend.

I can recount plenty of other serendipitous moments – seeing a flock of eight kererū while walking in a suburban park in an evening during a particularly low period in my life, and just knowing everything was going to be OK. Never seen in such numbers before or since.

And in March a friend and I rented an Airbnb in Te Awanga, Hawke’s Bay – it was the house my grandfather built as a bach and later lived in with my grandmother. We had family holidays there twice a year throughout my childhood.

Long since sold several times over, the house had been extended, but was still quite original, right down to the built-in bookshelves beside the beds and a shoe-cleaning cupboard.

Five minutes after we arrived, a pīwakawaka flew inside. An elderly friend had once said a fantail was the spirit of someone departed. And Māori mythology associates the bird with the presence of death.

I like to think it was my grandfather’s spirit returning, albeit briefly – a welcome back if you will. We had a wonderful time.

A last one I will mention occurred a few years ago when I was spending the afternoon with a friend who said she wanted to visit her father and brother’s graves at Purewa cemetery. It took a wee while to find them, and as we walked I mentioned I had meant to visit the cemetery the day before because that day had been the anniversary of my mother’s death.

My mother was cremated, but on the anniversary of her death, the large book in the chapel is opened to that date, and we can see her name and a message we left there. I was annoyed at myself for not making more of an effort and letting the day slip away from me.

“Why don’t you show me where that book is kept,” my friend said. So we wandered up the hill to the chapel, battling against a stiff autumn wind blowing leaves everywhere.

And we got to the window where the enormous book is displayed, open behind glass, we discovered the custodian had forgotten to turn the page that day. It was still open on May 21, and there was my mother’s name and message, waiting.

Serendipity is amazing. You just have to put yourself out there to find it.