This series of short stories I wrote with still dripping hair right after they happened. The first plays in Inisheer, the rest in Doolin.
Back Home
I so love it when a plan comes together. After five weeks of abstinence I sailed to Inisheer today. No Dusty at the pier and a crew member told me she had gone back to Doolin. Anyway, after having lugged my heavies to my spot near the slipway I kitted up. Still no dolphin at all. But the viz looked clear and the water of welcoming warmth so at least I was gonna have me a loving swim. I had hardly swum the length of the slipway when a bolt of silver lightning flashed by. You could not have been more right, Louise, she was waiting for me! Finallally, back home!
Aloof
Since Dusty does not like to swim in too shallow water I reckoned I’d better beat the tide, so I hit the water at eleven. And there she was, right down the slipway. I set out towards the Donkey, and I saw her silhouette moving past, just outside reach, so she wasn’t keen on a cuddle. Then I got lost in the lace weed and I don’t blame her for not following me there. They’re a nuisance, but I guess they do the job of slowing down the currents caused by the ferries. Further on the water got a little clearer, but the waves got wilder as well. Dusty crossed my path a few times, but was mostly hanging with the Polish fishermen in their tiny speedboats. I pushed on till the Donkey’s end but found it hard to keep eye contact with the bottom. As the tide was going out I didn’t want to find myself carried away and having to fight back through the current. It’s getting deeper there and the only eye contact possible is the crusty, just submerged ridge the waves were crushing on to, so occasional bursts of white water totally blind you. Being swept on to the platform holds the risk of negative waves that land you on the rasping rocks, so you have to navigate a safe distance, which is not easy in the sweeping fury. Then, in the deep nothingness suddenly, way under me, Dusty swam by. What a wonderful vision. It reminded me immediately of my very first meeting with Fungi in 1992. Then I laid in awe at the majestic sight of a real dolphin, moving under me in powerful elegance. So another wow-moment surprised me. Right after that I saw her close in on another swimmer, who turned out to be Trevor. So I lingered some longer, but Dusty kept aloof, giving merely fly-bys. On my way back I spotted another swimmer. Silke was hanging on to a tiny buoy. I had to go a long way back so continued. When you’re outside in the wind all day the restlessness alone can tire you out and in the water that triples up. Back at the slipway the tide had dropped massively and laid bare an eight meter stretch of dead slippery surface, lethal to walk. So on all fours I crawled back up. not very elegant I’m afraid, but proving my point: the life of a dolphin swimmer does not always go over roses.
Dusty Soup
After three fruitles Donkey swims in the confetti strewn murky water of Doolin Harbour and a dry day I had figured the best time of the day to meet Dusty was after 4 pm. My state-of-the-art brand new Atomic Aquatic Venom diving mask arrived at 3.36 pm as promised and with the drizzle that pitter-pattered on my windscreen I could not be bothered and neither did Dusty’s absence at the slipway. The viz did no justice to the ultraclear Scott superwhite lens of my mask, but the panoramic view allowed me to spot a shadow moving by after a 100 meter stretch into the beach’s armpit. Dusty was lovely, apparently she had not been raced by the fast and the furious and she was eagerly enjoying my caring finger tips. After a quality quarter she kept close for another fifteen mins, crossing my path and coming from underneath, but upon approaching the Donkey she left me to the fury of the incoming tide. I was back at the slipway in a flash current and she just saw me off when the Jack B and the Doolin Discovery arrived at the old pier. Her absence proved to be the interest on a capital encounter.
Matchmaker
It has happened before, that Dusty led me to other swimmers, but never before so articulately. And twice in a row. And both times she approached the other swimmer, whom by lack of knowing better, I’d name ‘Selkie’, as her appearance reminded me of the elusive sea spirit, she choose an angle that set me on a collision course that I only realised when it was too late and I bumped into Selkie. The waves were far too wild for a proper introduction, but this worked very effective as well.
Somehow my camera registered the second bump in erotic reds, as to flippantly refer to the coming Matchmaker festivities in my present residence, Lisdoonvarna. The viz did not allow for more videos, but when I reached the slipway again, Dusty, again, was fascinated by the magic of me taking off my monofin, so I caught a few last seconds of her wonder and amazement.
Wet Sunday
At least I knew it was going to be a nice swim the moment I looked under water. Though the viz wasn’t fab, it was clearer than it had been for three weeks. I had not seen Dusty on my swim two days ago and yesterday I didn’t even bother to go into the unwelcoming water. Also today, not a trace of Her Silvership when I trundled down the slipway in my heavies. I whipped off, put the camera on the back of my hand, went vertical to let the last of air squeeze out of my suit and, horizontal again to tighten my weight belt and out of nowhere got surrounded by Dusty.
Some introductory, off camera cuddles were in order, and I produced the WD-40 cap that bulged inside my sleeve. As I held it in my camera hand when I ran my opposed thumbnail along the edge it sounded well on camera, but I wanted it in the picture, where it lost a good deal of its reverberations. When it had outrattled its fascination for Dusty I set course towards the good old Donkey. The lace weed forest had been overridden by the tide, so but for an occasional knee tickle I had an easy passage. Clear water allows for more experiment, so I attached the camera to the tip of the waterwing, facing backwards as Dusty was following me just a little behind. She doesn’t very like my camera, because it affects my behaviour so there’s less attention left for her.
I got two short takes of her side-kicking me, but then she decided to switch sides. All right, something else then. I wanted to film her from underneath in order to get her refraction in, what we call in Dutch the ’spiegel’, the mirror. I had made a drawing of such a refraction with an articulated blowhole and am working now on one where her eye reflection is enhanced. So, also from the tip of the wing I got some footage from a deeper viewpoint, though these have turned out mostly silhouetted. The waves weren’t very wild, but somehow perfectly fitted for energy swimming. When I’m swimming against them, timing my strokes can set me forward in great paces and streamlining in between hardly slows me down.
This does not seem to interest Dusty, but as I do that in the shallowest water I can imagine she doesn’t want to risk a rocky body scratch. Because of the tide I wandered off above the Donkey before I realised a hasty escape was due. Then I got blinded by white water and finally skedaddled by the skin of my teeth. I had noticed there was a bit of an incoming current, but once I set sail for the return I flew with the water, full-bodied in lots of dives. Dusty came and went a few times, but left me to return alone to the slipway. Where I walked out Poseidonic, on my own proud feet, with a few meters of lace weed dangling down from my snorkel. What a wet and wonderful weekend!
Bubbly Girl
The mean hard wind that blew the drizzle into a drizzard did not really advertise the sweetest of swims, but it was off-shore and a quick peep off the pier promised a clear viz in virtually flat water. When I soaked in the serenity was all encompassing. It felt like a swimming pool in the early morning. No waves to wrestle. no full-time tugging on my fatigue, a wet dream for a control freak, now it was just me that worked with the water and with long and easy strokes I sped forward cool, calm and collected. It was too beautiful and only on my way back I realised I had swum with the wind, because then I swam against the short angry splosh, that busied my head with maddening and unrelenting staccatos.
So much more room beneath me and a telling sea bed. No Dusty, and as the tide allowed me I took the inside trail at the Donkey, the shallows at a comfy depth. I had half a mind to cross over to Crab Island, but I didn’t trust my eyes for the ferries. Just when I set course for the return Dusty popped up. She wasn’t too patient for an extended cuddle, but kept coming back for shorter caresses. I took the length of a dialysis tube out of my sleeve and blew a series of bubblettes, hoping she would give me a blow back. She didn’t and was not particularly impressed. I’m so weighted that I just float when I hold my breath. When I blow it out I sink. I want to be minimally buoyant, so I can easier stay under. It’s hard work, blowing out bubblettes, sinking and then hoisting myself to the surface and catch a breath with the tube between my teeth. Soon after I ran into Vanessa. I’m not chatty in the water for fear of gulping down a slosh and my time was running out. We swum further towards the slipway, but I wanted to make one more stop. I offered Vanessa the tube, so I could film her blowing for Dusty. Then I gave it a last few tries myself, where I waved and circled the stream of bubblettes. I didn’t get that on my video camera, but i’m pretty sure Vanessa got it on hers. With the unsure dignity of a drunken elephant I made the slipway. Meeting gravity again is a bummer when you’re tired from a two hour swim, in your heavies and up the slipway. But, oh luxury, my van awaits and with my patented double towel around me, out of rain and wind, with a gloriously hot, double sugared cappuccino from Inga-at-the-pier, the living is easy once more, in spite of the not very summer time.
One for the team
In my optimism I assumed the water would be as clear or even clearer than yesterday. Maybe because the parking place was vacant enough to take a bit of liberty by positioning my van with the nose into the drizzard. When I inched bumwise towards the water the backwash took me up and sleighed me towards the deep. There I was confronted by a dense grey world, spiked with confettied sea weed and a deadbeat jelly ridden swell. This was the kind of viz that had prompted dolphins to invent sonar. The water was very blind, I could hardly distinguish my fingers and the seabed was invisible.
Only once I spotted a large rock crisp and clear and way too close. Just in time I managed to escape from impact by hiking the pull of a negative wave that nearly beached me. The waves were breaking in white crests on the rocky shore line and the bad viz offered no navigable bottom line. I could solve this by hiking the roller-coasters above the expanse of lace weed. The tide carried me above them close enough to see and I needed not to fear being slam-dunked on solids by nega-waves. I didn’t go farther than halfway the Donkey. There was no Dusty and the seesaw sensation was rather too close for comfort to the rocks. Back at the slip, knee-deep, I was back-fired by the massive trash of a vengeful rogue. No dolphin, no glory!