Dolphin Address 21
May 17th 2005
It could not have been even more beautiful. The wind had subsided within the embrace of the bay and the voice of the ocean had gone into a whisper. The sun had warmed the rocks to a scent that had not entered my nostrils since last summer. A handful of delfinado’s had pushed their cars into the verge of the narrow road and had spread over the dry ran rock points. The water was crystal clear and the ripple seemed to act as lenses, picking the colors off the seabed. It was warm in the lee of the reflecting layers of stone and soon we waved away our hesitation: ‘Let’s go in!’.
My suit slid its smothering heat up from my ankles to the struggle to get into my sleeves. Weight belt on, mask and snorkel, wing and fin, and like a panting heater I tottered along the sea scarred rocks towards the releasing wet. A cool touching foot for a hold on the nearest by bottom and the other one cautiously deeper. Then headlong and with a sigh of salty surrender into the fresh.
Didn’t I spit my mask right? It was hazy before my eyes, but a little deeper it became sharp. This must be a salincline, fresh water that had not quite mixed with the salt. Not really clear, as I saw no water supply, no brook or stream. It must have been the ungrazed cliffs, where for centuries grass upon grass like an enormous sponge had sucked up the rain and now gave it back unnoticed.
We swam into the bay and everywhere in the shallows saw dead kelp. Not really a happy sight. A little further the seabed went deeper and everything looked healthy again. I had not swum for five months and had wrongfully been anxious that I had lost my shape and my water feeling. My locomotion was instantly started up. ‘Just add water’, the slogan of Mares was jubilating in my head. Compensating went like second nature and like an albatross I skimmed over the depths. The weed curtains, sea stars, the bluish light that faded to the depths, vertical rock walls with cracks, caves that harbored more then half darknesses, the infinite feeling of being held in the arms of gravity.
No dolphin, she remained a faraway promise, but a delicious relaxed swim, almost a renaissance. We swam around the tidal island, dived up sea urchins and spider crabs and put them neatly back. Tired, but bedazzled we crept up the shore and on a sun warmed terrace we slowly recuperated from the cold hit. Actually not too bad Dusty was not there. It could have been too much.
Jan Ploeg, Boathousebay, May 17th 2005
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