Chicken Soup for the Ocean Lover's Soul (4 page)

Suddenly, the mother reappeared at the surface, snatched Elwood under her paw and swam quickly away. In seconds, the pair was safely nestled amid the kelp beds in Lover’s Point. The team had done all it could do. Now it was up to Elwood’s adopted mother. Cautiously, the team moved away.

The next morning both Elwood and his new mom were spotted in the area off Lover’s Point. Elwood rode happily on her belly as she skulled backwards through the kelp beds. The team couldn’t believe it. Sea otter mom without pup, pup without mom—the match had been made. A new family had taken residence in Monterey Bay!

Roxayne Spruance and Michelle Staedler

Hooked on Mahogany

W
e share the Earth not only with our fellow
human beings, but with all the other creatures.

Dalai Lama

Now that I’m old, I come to the dock with my poles and tackle, and I fish each day. There are always four or five pelicans that sit nearby on the pier and wait with great patience until I toss a fish their way. They have curious eyes with yellow irises and black pupils. Their bodies are a silvery brown, and their huge shovel mouths all seem identical. Almost all of the pelicans have large, arched necks that are white, but one is different. He seems older, wiser, something like myself. He is the lone one with a deep brown neck. I’ve even named him; I call him Mahogany.

There are days when the tide is out and the water is very low, but I still come around to watch him swoop in and gently land on the planks. Some mornings I fish with squid for bait and quickly hook a fish that brings Mahogany to his feet. I hold it in my hand and try to coax him, get him close. But he’s a wild creature, and no amount of bribing can make him a friend. I guess I’m useful so long as I toss him a fish. Every morning we have a new encounter. One day my light pole was bending in half with the weight of a big fish. I saw Mahogany glide across the calm sea, drop daintily to the dock and watch the struggle that was going on.

The fish was tiring me, but it finally broke water, and I could see it was a hefty jack cravalle. As soon as it hit the deck, the fish and I were surrounded by a wave of young white-necked pelicans. They were in a frenzy for the jack, but calm old Mahogany just sat there and watched. I had to drive the birds away with a wave of my arms and then bucket the struggling fish. Mahogany never budged, and when the rest flew off, I cut the fish into chunks that I knew he could catch. I tossed piece after piece into his cavernous mouth, and when he finished the last, he slunk down and rested his bill on still-wet feathers. Two old men, he and I, still hanging on.

At the end of the day, I looked up and saw a flock of egrets that looked like a thousand white butterflies. Across the cove I could see the pelicans returning from yet another expedition. Like old bombers with outstretched wings, they circled a cluster of casuarina pines that grew out of the water. One by one the great birds lowered their flap feathers in midair, stalled and, with webbed landing gear down, shuddered to a halt on flimsy branches. At the top of the tallest tree I could see Mahogany preening his wings and fixing his gaze on me. I doffed my hat in tribute.

When I came to the dock in the morning, the old bird was already sitting there. I moved my gear and put some cut mullet on the hooks. In a minute I hit something, and I had to hold on for dear life. It felt as though my arms were being torn from the sockets. Mahogany flew over to the new spot, his erect feathers signaling excitement. I finally landed the monster of a catfish and was very cautious with the dorsal and pectoral fins. Each was barbed with a hidden stiletto capable of tearing the skin to the bone. I dispatched the brute and nudged it toward the pelican. But he, too, was wary of those barbs. He snubbed his beak at the fish and walked away. I love to eat catfish and know exactly how to dress them for a tasty meal. I was also curious if Mahogany would take them defanged. With a sharp fillet knife I removed the spikes and cleaned the fish while the bird watched my every move. I tossed him a few chunks, but the usually ravenous pelican turned and again walked away.

At midday, the two of us dozed in the warmth of the winter sun. It was late in the afternoon when I awoke and was aware of a bevy of pelicans waiting for a meal. My pole bent, and they knew immediately. A few remained on the dock, but the others were already in the water, ready to pluck the fish from my line. I was afraid to pull it up. If they took it, they would get the hook also. I kept the fish underwater and waited for the exact moment. When it came, I pulled hard and watched them slash each other with their swordlike bills. As I reeled in the fish, it dropped from the line. To my horror I saw the loose hook rip into the bystander—Mahogany!

My feelings were so acute that I could almost feel the hook in my own flesh. My friend had the hook embedded in his back, and for a moment I could feel his weight hanging from the pole. I cut the line immediately, and the bird flew away with fifteen feet of line dangling from his body. My mind was racing. Could he survive with the deeply embedded hook? Would it rust? Would it infect him?

In the morning I left my poles at home and walked back to the dock, looking for Mahogany, but he was gone. No one had seen him. The poles remained in my house, and I no longer fished. I spent my days just searching for the bird with the dark brown neck.

And then one day I looked up into a steel gray sky and watched a small group of pelicans come in over the water, stretch their mighty wings, and dive into the tiny cove that was alive with small fish. Again and again they went into their steep dives and scooped up the wriggling fish, which dripped from their huge mouths. Mahogany was leading the pack, still trailing fifteen feet of nylon line. Now for the first time I got my pole, and once again I fished and watched. I had my line near a forest of mangrove whose twisted roots sheltered a variety of fish. I soon had a flaming red snapper tugging on the light pole. Sure enough, the old bird showed me his confidence by dropping down not too far away. I could see the end of the gold hook in the very center of his back. I held the fish high and coaxed Mahogany to come nearer. The huge head was not too far away when I tossed him the fish. Mahogany lunged, and I did also. I clasped him to my chest and held his bill as I ran for help. At a friend’s boat we held him tightly and pulled the hook out with a pair of thin pliers. He flew up as soon as I let him loose. Those huge wings pumped a few times, and then he went into his glide. The old bird banked in a wide turn and landed back on the planks. The sun was up now and everything glowed; in minutes the still water had turned to gold. I looked into Mahogany’s old yellow eyes and smiled; it was nice to have him back.

Mike Lipstock

Picasso of the Sea

Many years ago I was visiting my friends at the Dolphin Research Center in the Florida Keys. The director, Mandy Rodriguez, asked if I would like to paint with some of the dolphins. I, of course, wondered how this was going to work and made my way back to a lagoon where, to my surprise, a small group of bottlenose dolphins greeted me with excitement.

As I sat on the edge of the dock and readied a set of water-based acrylic paints, the dolphins became more excited. I, too, was intrigued about collaborating with these highly intelligent mammals. If any animal on Earth besides humans could create a work of art, it would most certainly be dolphins.

I passed a paintbrush to a dolphin named Kibby, who took the handle in her mouth. Next, I held up a canvas, and she immediately began to paint with a Picasso flair, laying down each stroke with a twist of her head and, finally, a 360-degree spin. When she was done, she passed the brush back to me and watched as I painted my part.

Two very diverse marine artists, Kibby, the dolphin, and I, the human, shared a single canvas. But we discovered that we also shared something else—the spirit of joy. Together, we had created something uniquely beautiful, a one-of-a-kind collaboration between artists of two different worlds. I told my friends on the dock later that it was just the salt that made my eyes water. But they knew how I felt about making such a wonderful connection with one of these beautiful creatures.

When the painting was finished, Kibby smiled a big dolphin grin. She nodded her head in approval of the completed work, then lifted her flukes above the surface and dived. A few seconds later she brought me the highest honor a dolphin can give, a gift from the sea—a rock!

Wyland

ZIGGY
© ZIGGY AND FRIENDS, INC. Reprinted with permission of UNIVERSAL
PRESS SYNDICATE. All rights reserved.

The Blind Diver

It was one of those black nights at sea. No shade of gray separated the water from the sky, nor was there a peek of light from a distant shore. Our boat anchored in the dark as oversized swells crashed upon its hull. A huge 16-mm underwater motion-picture camera was lowered over the side to a photographer in the water. The photographer signaled that the camera was secure, and the rest of us plunged into the water, each person carrying a large underwater light tethered to the generator of our boat.

Slowly, we worked our way down through the ensnaring kelp forest, guided by the lights, until the whir of the generator stopped, the lights winked out, and we were left suspended in utter, complete blackness.

I tugged on my cable only to discover it had disconnected from the generator. Without it, there was absolutely nothing to guide me to the surface or to the boat. Suddenly, it became impossible to know which way was up or down. There was no right, no left. I was completely disoriented. A chill crept over me. My breath choked midway to my lungs. I had become engulfed in a paralyzing fear. But my survival instincts weren’t ready to give up yet.
I am
not going to die here,
I reassured myself.
Not now. Not this way!

My calm prevailed and effectively saved my life. I’ve gone diving many times after that terrifying experience, but never at night. I could not force myself to, despite the survival lessons I had learned. However, it was on another dive that I learned what it is truly like to dive without sight. This remarkable experience occurred off the coast of Florida, where I went diving with a blind man. I had met him onboard a commercial dive boat many years ago, and although I knew him for only a few hours, he changed my life forever.

Blind from birth, he had never seen a ray of light in his entire life. For his sixty-fifth birthday, he gave himself the gift of scuba diving lessons. He said he had always dreamed of someday diving off the Florida Keys, and from the moment he first learned of scuba diving, he had been consumed with the idea of floating, weightless and free, in the inner space of the ocean.

But this was more than his first attempt at diving. It was the first time he’d ever been more than fifty miles from his home in Michigan. He had never traveled alone and had never been near the water, except in a swimming pool and, later, in a Michigan quarry where he took his qualifying dive.

Once he earned his scuba diving certification, he started calling dive shops in Florida. Each call was met with disbelief. “No way!” “Blind?” “You’re kidding!” were the
responses he heard over and over again.

Finally, a dive-boat captain agreed to take him diving near Key Largo. I was there as he lugged his gear onboard. The sight of this man walking down the dock with a white cane in one hand and a diving bag in the other was a surreal experience in itself.

At sea, he dressed for the dive on the teetering boat, just like the rest of us. And when one of the divers tried to help him put on his tank, he said politely, “No, I can do this. But I appreciate your thought.” Then he made his way to the rail of the boat, boosted himself up and flipped backward into the water.

I imagined he must have experienced the same disorientation underwater that had filled me with terror during my earlier night dive. He was, after all, completely blind!

How did he know which way was down and which way was up?

How did he know where the fish were?

He extended his hands and opened his fingers, and soon small schools of fish swam in and out of them. It was as if they were petting him. Then a five-foot-long grouper cruised right up to him as if to say, “Let’s play.” The blind diver seemed to welcome the fish, caressing it as if he were petting a favorite dog.

With gloved hands he explored every rock he encountered. Inch by inch. Crevice by crevice. Nothing escaped his attention. He ascended, on time, before his air ran out, found the ladder to the boat and climbed onboard, doing everything by himself, just like the rest of us.