In the summertime I like to post my Dusty videos on Facebook asap. So I did with the ones I took of Kate and Dusty. But these are exceptional and I saved them until now for Dolphin Address, as a Christmas surprise.
I could have let the videos speak for themselves, but I thought it might be fun to have a chat with Kate about Dusty to accompany the images. And so did Kate.
So we met at our favorite Tea House , Guru, in Ennistymon, and had a lengthy conversation. Often, when talking to other ‘regular Dusty swimmers’, I learn things. Dusty behaves differently to each swimmer and Kate has been her long-time top-notch favorite. So I knew I was in for a treat.
Kate begins with saying: ‘I think she knows everything. It’s unreal. I swim and play with Dusty for an hour and a half and then a little thought comes that I will go out and without any words or movement she starts to swim towards the shore, like she reads my mind-unbelievable.
I cannot but agree. Like she once hurt somebody who had treated me badly. And I couldn’t help thinking: ’She knows, she knows’.
And this runs very deep. A significant experience for Kate was the only time Dusty didn’t want her to leave the water. That was last winter at Fanore. Kate felt under time pressure to leave the water. She was out at the reef at Pollenawatch. Dusty left her there, swam back to the shore and began a power display with massive jumps and tail-slaps. When Kate swam back Dusty came head-on before her and did not want to let her pass. Then she understood:
‘That really got me thinking. She did not want to hurt me, she was protecting me, against myself. I realised she was telling me to look after myself. Not to give in to pressure from other people. Do what I actually wanted to do. She made me realise my own identity, that I was my own person, just as free as she is. Because when I give in to someone I feel small, no power. Often it happens that you’re giving and giving and you don’t get anything back. And then you’re exhausted. She taught me to take better care of myself.’
Isn’t it great when you find mutual understanding, don’t have to defend yourself against skepticism, don’t need to explain. When you’re not met with suspicion or are made to feel you have to prove what you’re saying, but that you can share, feel encouraged to put into words what you’re actual experience is, your very personal feeling about something that is so close to you, that you normally wouldn’t even bother to talk about it.
We agree, that in spite of all kinds of scientific approaches as a subjective interpretation of a situation, there is an absoluteness about Dusty-inspired thoughts that fit your awareness like a revelation, something that maybe was there all along, but she brought it to the surface, she made you put it, if not into words, but ‘into the picture’. She actually helped to realise something about yourself, like awakening from a dream. You are connected by feeling and you can let it flow.
‘After that experience everything cleared up. After that I thought, ’She’s trying to tell me something’, and think about what she means me to realise.’
I can’t help thinking of my own dolphin sense, that she does everything for a reason. No random happening-to-be-there, even the smallest of maneuvers she does for a reason, not necessarily particularly important, but just like us people, we are driven by reason, however small and insignificant, but a reason all the same.
It’s so nice talking dolphin with Kate. We first met in Fanore, 2004. It was a beautiful evening and I had seen Kate and George going in and staying there, playing with Dusty, while slowly the twilight drained from the horizon. I got a bit worried, as I knew how treacherous the rocks become in the dark. So when finally they came out and we happened upon each other at the Coast road corner, I had to almost brace myself against the enthusiasm that exploded from their faces. That was the beginning of a strong friendship and mutual inspiration.
It’s often been said, the dolphin brings out the best or the worst in people. I have encountered a lot of envy among people who swam with Fungi and/or with Dusty. But that is easily put aside when I look at all the good it has brought me.
Already in Dingle it struck me that a good swim with Fungi often brought a second blessing when you came out of the water. There would be other swimmers there, greeting you with words like ‘Wow, that was an amazing swim you just had there’. That recognition and appreciation on top of the swim itself made your day complete. And that is something that still rejoices me. When someone comes out with those big happy eyes after a great swim with Dusty I feel genuine double joy, for the person who had a great encounter with the dolphin and for Dusty herself for the same reason. A true double dolphin win.
All these feelings you can not scientifically prove, but you know and that will have to do. Sometimes these realisations are very emotional. I still have that myself, from time to time, my eyes are running full, I have a happy cry and then feel enormously relieved. Kate tells me that her six years old son Joshua had this too. He cried and cried after swimming with dolphins in the Bahama’s. He said it was about the dolphins. But then he was released and went back in for another dolphin swim. When he came out he was all right again.
There is something of magic, for lack of another word, about dolphins. Kate tells me that just a few months ago, George was out on the paddle board and had taken his little daughter, Natalie, with him. And that she, Kate, wanted Dusty to meet Natalie.
‘Dusty keept looking and looking at Natalie, so long, unbelievable. And then I took Natalie with me into the water. It was freezing cold and Natalie began to cry. Then Dusty came right in front of us and you know what happens in cartoons, when someone really adores something. They get these hearts in their eyes, and so did Dusty. She was blooming.’
That reminds me of a moment in one of the videos. Dusty is being stroked by Kate, hanging on to a buoy, and her body posture, crowned with her eyes, displays such rapture and adoration, I’ve never seen a dolphin expressing so much affection.
‘Since what happened at Fanore I feel I understand Dusty much better. So beautiful, mostly she has her eyes half-closed, very relaxed and peaceful, and then suddenly she opens them, wide open, that look is so wonderful, so close, totally amazing. no words can describe that. Dusty cannot move her face, only her eyes, but she can put so much expression in them.’
A while ago I took a series of stills from a video that I had taken of her face. And each photo shows a different face, though they were taken only seconds apart. It’s a very concentrated form of body language.
Kate says when she ’s in the water with Dusty all her energy is focussed on Dusty, ‘as if there’s this big hole in my body that’s totally open to her’.
‘She just loves it when I stroke very gently over her eyes.’
I am surprised, I always avoid touching her too close to her eyes or her blowhole. But Kate tells me that Dusty adores her touching the wrinkles right under her eyes.
’That’s the best that I can do for her’.
With me she likes it when I dip my finger in her ‘armpit’, right at the end of the pectoral fins. That’s always a bit slippery and I think that is because the water does not get in there strong enough to rinse it.
Kate says she uses different kinds of scratching on different parts of Dusty’s body.
‘ People seem to think I’m scratching her where I want, but that’s not so. I’m scratching her where she wants. She’s moving her body exactly there where she wants my hands.’
To be continued.