2015 is not yet one month old and already I have seen the word of the year. That word is, prepare yourself..."Poonado". That is, a tornado made of poo.
A group of divers off the island of Dominica, in the Caribbean, have coined the term "poonado" to describe the herculean movement that a whale performed right in front of, and subsequently all around them.
A Canadian photographer in the group hypothesised that it was a defence mechanism on the whale's part that turned the water from an idyllic crystal clear, to something that resembled chocolate milk, so thick that they could not see their hands in front of their faces. They had faeces on their faces. And in their mouths and eyes and in their wet suits and in places that they didn't even know they had.
The gigantic mammal was perturbed by the presence of tourists in its manor and bent its microscopic whale brain to teaching them a lesson. As lessons go, it was not very sophisticated, but a whale can not give false directions to a bewildered Swedish back packer looking for Madame Tussaud's, like we can in London.
Whales are restricted by not having the ability to speak. They also can not sing, despite the many meditation tapes that claim that they can. Even One Dimension can sing better than that. One Dimension can also produce a "whirlwind of excrement", but not with the force that those divers witnessed in the newly brown Caribbean Sea.
The human interlopers into the whale's domain remained motionless in wonderment as the mammal before them pointed its head to the bottom of the sea. Thinking it was about to dive, they readied their cameras to capture the magnificent animal in its descent. Things took a turn when, rather than set off for the bottom, it let off from its bottom.
Experts say that this is normal behaviour, to rid excess weight before vigorous activity. However, the animal remained at the surface and proceeded to defecate for what the observers described as "a startling length of time".
In what sounds like a move you might see on Strictly Come Dancing, the whale then bobbed up and down and spun in circles, spreading its discharge thoroughly around itself and the divers. It was literally dirty dancing.
Revelling in this awesome sight, rather than swimming away as fast as they could, the diving group got covered like a cake in frosting. They claim that when the whale left the area, perhaps for hygiene reasons, the waste washed off them and left no smell. Or at least none that they could detect. But then these are people who willingly stayed still in a thick stool soup, so their senses may not be running at maximum capacity.
It is just another insight into the wonders of nature. And another excellent reason not to get into any body of water that is not completely surrounded by tiles.