Yesterday the moon was in the third quarter, it was an uneven day and the tide was coming in, so Dusty arrived, exactly on time, at 14.23 at Pollenawatch.
I sense surprise. That sounds as if she is on a schedule. That can't be true, and of course, it isn't. However, one does not want to feed all the mouths of those who ask me: 'What time is the dolphin around?'
And sometimes you would indeed ever so much like to know when she'll be there. Like yesterday, the day before yesterday and the day before that.
Thirty metres down a stumble path with a 12 kilo weight belt, a rucksack with wetsuit and accessories, a wind-reactive monofin and a waterwing that, although it floats, still weighs a fat ten kilo's, is reasonably do-able, especially with the prospect of a wonderful encounter with Dusty. But when, hours later, disenchanted and petrified by a relentlessly icy wind and with the gnawing doubt whether you will ever see her again, toiling up again, then there is more than a lost day. Then you fall victim to desperation, an inescapable melancholy, at the end of your strength, when at long last, beaten up by your own weight, you reach the comfort of the faithful van.
Because you gave it all. When she wasn't there, you encouraged yourself that she could turn up any moment, that is was dead simple, either she was there, or she wasn't. And that the chunk of rock behind which you sought shelter when the wind drove the rain almost horizontally, does provide precious protection. And while your eyes try to knead every pointy wave into a dorsal fin, you muse on about how wonderful it was when she brought you a fragment of stone upon which a seaweed had settled, and that you threw it away and before your eyes she caught it very adroitly with her snout and neatly brought it back. Or that time that you dove bottom-deep through the cavernous channel right behind the reef, along the dead man's thumbs and football-sized sea-urchins and that she still managed to pass underneath you. Or even that time that you, totally frozen, crept out of the water at the bathing tub and flat out lay down in the sun-warmed water of the pool rock to get your temp back.
But also that time that metre-high waves with angry violence slammed into the sperm whale rock and sprayed water all over you, while it was evident, fondly acceptable even, that it would be lethally dangerous to go in, but even more so, to get out of the water again, that Dusty suddenly showed up close and with total contempt for peril gave a fabulous performance by jumping high above the shallow water, racing in a gigantic wave at full speed towards the 'head & shoulders rock' and in the after-last moment shot aside with a powerful and elegant swing.
But that, in spite of these cherished memories, the ocean seems to become ever emptier and you begin to consider the moment of departure and again and again postpone it until the next gull has flown by, the coaster at the horizon has passed all of the Aran Islands and nothing else is left but to slowly count backwards from hundred to zero.
So no excited text to Kate and George or a warm narrative over Skype to my mother. Even my computer will only show a blank screen. And even though I'm not into booze, a pint at Pat O'Donohue’s will not bring solace as I'm not supposed to drink beer anymore. And also Willem is in Belfast this week.
But then again I brighten up. Artists have to suffer and this is an excellent occasion. On the dashboard of my van lies my trusty bluesharp. I take a deep breath and there I go:
'When I woke up this morning,
the sea so deep, mountain so high,
and my only true love so far away,
ain't never gonna come back, ooh-wah, ooh-wah…'