After a sharp intake of breath I felt like an obese penguin. It had just started to rain again and the three-inch thick wet suit that I was wearing kept me bobbing on the surface like a soggy marshmallow in a bowl of lucky charms. The water was warm compared to the chill of the little flecks of rain that now pattered down on my cheeks.
There was a splash, loud and guttural indicating the size of him, and it was only a few yards away. My racing heart leaped into the green water and I plunged my head down below the thick surface. The visibility was grainy, like the rough photos of the yeti in the forests. I could hear my breathing, short and alien, interspersed with a blow as I tried to clear the salty drool at the bottom of my snorkel.
I could see the kelp flowing in the light current below me, and the undulations of the seabed. My mind kept tricking me, seeing his form in the shadows and the shards of light as they filtered down through the silt. Just then, as I raised my head from the surface, my goggles fogged up and adorned with pearls of water I saw his fin. Cutting the water like a sword through silk. This time he didn't make a sound; he slipped back into the dark of the harbour and swam back to the sea.
Back onboard, soggy and salty, we plunged into the rising waves. I had a slight feeling of lightness in my belly; partly form the wine the night before, the rise and fall of the sea waves and the anticipation of him. We were five, six if you count the captain of the dingy. He had a face full of neatly chopped red beard, and kind sky blue eyes that constantly scanned the horizon.
Just being in the bay was lovely, the canopy of scattered clouds and local rain was causing the sea to luminese with green, blue, and the black where you could see its interior. There were florescent green fields of lush grass and big square bulls. And the rocks that were sharpened by the crashing waves had a crown of rainbows.
And then a bundle of energy would erupt above us. Sneaking up upon the boat the friendly dolphin would leap, full of joy and mischievousness, reveling in our squeals of delight. Swim below and between the other boat, playing, weaving and herding us out to sea. Through the glistening surface, rippling and squelchy, was his white underbelly. He would turn and skim the bottom of the boat, coming within inches of its fast moving and comparatively clumsy blue form. The many layers of paint had rounded the edges were it must have chipped against the rocks, giving it a friendly, lumpy skin.
His body must have been the size of the boat itself. Broad and grey, he loomed below us like a shadow, hiding, looking up at us. He has been playing with people and their boats for twenty five years. And yet he has lost none of his fondness and curiosity towards us.
I reached out over the front of the boat, craning out like the bare breasted ladies on the bow of old pirate ships. Cloaked in the sleek lining of my lacquered wetsuit, I was stretching out to touch him. Like the hand-slapping game that teenagers flirt with, I was reaching toward the creamy surface of the fast-moving water, almost touching. I could see him through the jelly mould of the bow wake, wriggling with pleasure, teasing me ever more. You can't touch me, but taunting me by being so close.
