Dolphin Address 33
December 7, 2004
Mostly when you look up from 3 or 4 meters you see the surface break the light in undulating patterns. After the last storm I nearly bumped my nose against the seabed and only my own air bubbles indicated the way back. Hard to believe that the visibility once extended here towards the horizon.
When I enter the water I often look for a flat stone on the bottom. This should have sufficient mass to knock my sound signature with on the monofin and have such a shape that it fits comfortably under my weight belt and also stays there. When Dusty is not there I dive several times to the seabed and knock my rhythm on the mono, while I'm slowly drifting upwards. Meanwhile I am investigating industriously into the grey for a swift shadow.
Dolphins are acoustic animals with relatively bad eyesight. Dusty can hear us from a great distance, but with the bad visibility she seems to prefer encounters at or just below the surface. Normally she divides her attention about equally between Verena and me. But Verena does not dive as deep and makes less maneuvers with her under water than I do. On the contrary she can develop explosive speed. This seems a reasonable explanation for the fact that this time she was a lot more with Verena than with me.
At a given moment I decided to just go for a little swim. Shortly I saw under my left armpit her familiar wiseacre swimming along. This she knows of me, the long distance swims from Pollenawatch to Bridie beach. Soon I could no longer resist the temptation and dived, under through her and up on her other side. She kept swimming calmly, as if she was a boat. At the next dives she joined me indeed, but remarkably often bent away from me.
Until just before I went out. I let myself float from the bottom when suddenly she shot at full speed right over my head. I still see her pectoral fins straight down on both sides shadowing by.
Long time ago I decided not to have to fear her. I still don't as all went well. I have, however, gotten an even more intense dislike for murky water.
Jan Ploeg, Killohill, December 7th 2004
print version