Dolphin Address 19
May 7th 2005
For what feels long enough to be normal Dusty seems to have dissolved
into the Atlantic. It was the ever vigilant
www.irishdolphins.com that
dropped us an e-mail with the exact location she had been recently
spotted. So we rocketed off to the old boathouse past White Strand and crept the bus into the swampy verge of the narrow asphalt. We walked the flower sprinkled cow feet printed meadow towards the roar of the ocean in superduper never get cold kind of clot hes and indeed a cove appeared that is bordered by foam spitting rocks and truck loads of crashing waves churning sea butter upon the shores.
It did not exactly look like a harbor for a sugar sweet fun loving dolphin, but we did not expect her to be served on a silver platter. So we trotted along the cliffs over weird, sea eaten rock structures, by sturdy purple flowers bent by the high wind over to the adjacent cove. From here I focused the binoculars on a gathering of rocks that threw up the mighty rollers and suddenly dolphin fever struck me again. I saw a flash of smooth shiny brown elegance, too short to be certain but enough to make us turn our stride and head back to the boathouse cove.
There we knew. She lashed her fluke high out of the water several times so we could trace her by the foam. Then she jumped out high, and again, seeming to be in high spirit. Some times she disappeared for a spell and showed up in different places. Then we saw her surface with something large and white-ish in her mouth. We thought it might be a salmon and figured they favor these waters for their richness of whipped up oxygen.
She did not get really close, though, but we're pretty sure she is the solitary dolphin named Dusty, Mara, Orb, Mushroom, Her Ladyship, Meissie or what ever other name she doesn't respond to anyway. It feels so good to have finally seen her. She fills the ocean with her daring elegance and the promise that someday soon we may meet in skin.
To feed or not to feed herself on fresh easy salmon and instead bring joy to the family of man. That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler to fill the daily call of her hungry belly or to share her accomplished mind with those landlubbers that seek her attention out there in the wild waters. Will she indeed open another season for dolphin affecionados or will she be a distant image of a die hard legend?
Jan & Verena, Fanore Meadow, May 7th 2005
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