Today, the 25th of March, I had my first swim this year.
I live here amid Nature and this determines my life to a great extent. In bad weather, I do everything inside, but in a dry spell I run up (and down) the rocks. Purely for pleasure and it keeps me fit as well. When the weather is good, I have the back doors open and live outside as much as possible. For quite some time I was about to go for a swim. Dusty is a lot at Pollenawatch and that pulls. But then again I have to be cautious for my own enthusiasm. It is still bitterly cold in the evening and two weeks ago there was frost on the morning meadow. Prudence is in order, as being ill on my own is no lullaby.
As usual, I need to have my moment. That is not negotiable. That is a sudden impulse, an understanding of purity, an Omen and different each time. This time it was my olive oil. Through the entire winter it was solid in its bottle. This I used to turn over the fire of my gas ring long enough to get it so liquid as to pour it out. And this morning I saw it had turned liquid! That was my cue.
Dusty does something with you. Or do you do it to yourself? I was prepared for the water to be cold. It was, but only in my face and just for a few minutes. Other than that it wasn't too bad.
I felt clumsy and stiff, not really at ease. Had the feeling I hardly got ahead. Had hoped the pains in my back and right leg would be negligible. They were not.
The water was super clear with loads of confetti (three days ago there had been quite a storm, see Arkeen Storm) and fat plankton, already. It was high tide, so deep and the seabed was not very near. I noticed I had to compensate already at two metres. That was just the offbeat. Also I could not stay under for very long. But I did not easily tire. Dusty wasn't there and I didn't mind. I had to get used to water again anyway. It would be embarrassing if she saw me like this.
I don't much like hanging around. Rather I'd go somewhere. Somewhere beautiful and not too deep. Then Pollenawatch gives you plenty of choice. You can go both ways along the rocks. Deep and shallow alternate in breathtaking rock formations, rolling stone intermezzos, rippling sand sweeps and waving sea weed gardens.
But I wanted to give my fins a good stretch and therefore headed for the reef. That was under water now, so I had to orientate on memories of six years ago. And then you find that most of your memory lives in your computer, which I didn't carry along. I was unmistakably close. The sand fully went over in shallower weed gardens. But was I too far to the right or should I go further to the left? I swam back to the edge of sand and seaweed to find myself back. Geez, was the current that strong? There used to be hardly any, but now the fets were coming fast. I stopped and hung still. Now they hardly moved anymore. Rapture warmed my heart, I was on speed again.
George and me are always glad to meet, but this time he was waving in exuberance. Half a second later I understood: Dusty! Another half second later she was there. From craziness I did not know what folly sounds to make, but she laid herself quietly beside me and looked at me with a buddy eye, nice one, there you are again. I wish I could have such deliverance.
But sentimentality is not in our romance description.
I dived under her and she turned around me and soon we were wrapped in a spatial ballet. Breathing I could do later, now it took me and we enthralled each other from surface to bottom. Everything fell off me, the pain in my back became a push-off, the apprehension for the cold went over in a tingle, the hesitation became a gogo. And she was everywhere, flashing silver, agile strength, and together we washed into water.
George tapped on my shoulder: 'May we change partners?' No better moment than to gather my bliss and pass on my joy. Dusty gave a caring eye to my safely exiting the water. Then she danced away with George. I spun out of my suit and dried the not yet fizzled-out water off my blessed body.
I needed to go to the bank since two weeks to transfer money to my account in Holland, and I could have made it in time. But I rather went to Kate and Joshua, to catch up on tings, eat an apple, feed the cookie monster (Roxy, professional dog) and play Uncle John with the little man.
Two days later I was present at ten o'clock. Just to be there, to relive the old magic. What a personality such a spot has. Trevor told me later that in his memory from six years ago everything was smaller. I had something similar, but different. Very good old friends you haven't met in a long time and little to tell at first. Until the lens jumps into focus and it seems as if you've never been away, the harvest of memory.
At about half one a dorsal fin was spotted by Colm and a quarter of an hour later by Kate. Someone said that if someone went in she'd probably come over, but no one did. I've never been a sharp spotter, but I happened to look in the right direction and saw them, two dolphins!
One had a white scratch across her dorsal, clearly Dusty. The other was somewhat smaller. George was first in the water, followed by Ute. I first wanted to double check my underwater housing, as that would come along, instead of the waterwing.
The wind had rather picked up and it was not easy to find the others. Didn't need to, really. Dusty found me when I came up from the deep. I pointed my camera to her and felt a light panic. How could this be, she was less than three metres away from me and all I saw on my monitor was light green. She left right away, but each time I went deep, some seven metres, she came by.
There is quite a difference between understanding what you do wrong and correcting it. My underwater housing allows the monitor to be positioned at an angle. In itself useful but in the water you lie more than you stand upright, therefore I aimed the camera too high. The monitor should be at a smaller angle, that's all. A number of camera functions can be done by buttons and levers on the underwater housing, but not the angle of the monitor. So here and there I have some glimpses of Dusty, but not fit for YouTube.
At White Strand I've seen Dusty swim over the seabed, but not very often. Now I did and that is mostly because the water is wonderfully clear.
She went very fast and I got the impression she would rather not be seen. This may have to do with her inclination to show up where you least expect her. We humans tend to think in flat level. But in water gravity is no big thing and then it borders on magic how fast after disappearing she can pop up from somewhere completely different. Now I know, she passes underneath, she can move in the third dimension so she can think in it too.
The other dolphin kept itself at a distance, but once I saw them together, deep under me and too fast to film. So beautiful, they swung in perfect synch in an S-movement, but also so inaccessible. For you can be named 'dolphinman' a thousand times over, to move like this is not on our menu. Unless you swim inside, then everything is possible that you can understand.
Yesterday morning Kate called me: 'Dusty swims here (Pollenawatch) with five other dolphins.' I had just kitted up, so I went even more immediate. Because back from Pollenawatch you have to go up 30 metres by cow trails, I rather spent my strength on a swimming distance.
Even though I have her special permission, I always ask Bridie if I can park there. Faraway I saw swimmers, no dorsal fins. The little beach still lay dry, but I remembered very well that here you have to leave your shoes well up if you don't want to meet one on the way back. And then the other one.
It is quite a swim and it took me about half an hour one way to Pollenawatch. If you swim closer to the rocks it is true you don't take the shortest route, but the seabed is closer and much more interesting than the usual sand that you see if you go as the crow flies.
I was on my way for less than 10 minutes when I met a dolphin, and another one, and another two, and another one, and then, as the captain, Dusty, quite a bit larger. Wow, so many dolphins together I had not seen since my swim in the Duisburg (Germany) Zoo in 1997.
They did not stay, but nevertheless they came, this was no random meeting. I mused on. Yesterday it seemed for a while that Dusty was more interested in the other dolphin than in us, though she did pass by several times. Now she came with five others, on the face of it all girls. Was she recruiting midwives? Was this a hen party? An introduction to us swimmers?
From underneath me a silver Dusty glided forward.
'Hey, how nice, you swim along? Nice friends you got!'
She made a lazy bend and disappeared in a far haze.
How she did come along. I went deeper a few times. It swims nicer and faster, because mono and wing have more resistance to push off and because you waste no energy in lifting up waves. Also you have better reception on Dusty's sonar. It's only harder to work with your breath held.
This time she came from aside. I bent with her and she bent me even more. Then I swam away underneath her. She came to my side and I let my fingers glide over the knobs of my waterwing. 'Vroom, verroom, verreveroom. She lay opposite me and followed my hand with her head.
Don't give too much attention, continue now. I began to find it a very long way now, to the cape I was heading for. I looked aside and saw by Anna's B&B that I nearly was past Pollenawatch. The seaweed garden under me was part of the reef. I changed my tack and Dusty joined me. She kept around, within my sight, also, when closer to the rocks the visibility became worse.
I saw various people on the rocks, but the ones I recognised had already been in the water and were warming up again. No one else seemed to come in. So I invited Dusty to dance and together we swayed between big chunks of rock and over Japanese-like weed gardens with rolling stones and sand ripples on smooth ground rock bottom. Thus we graced each other and were tenderly watched from the shore. I saw Sinéad getting into her wetsuit and waited with my return. When she entered the water with her bodyboard I went off in the direction of the Bridie cove. Dusty and Sinéad accompanied me for a stretch. I swam on at my ease. As long as you move you keep longer from getting cold. Back at Bridie's I saw I had been in the water for an hour and a half. To Bridie, who in summertime always has a red sign out saying: 'Coffee, Tea, Soup and Sandwiches' I have suggested adding 'Dolphins'. I know, one dolphin does not make a pod, but it begins to look like that we’re going to have an interesting summer. Or not, of course, but that's no fun to think.