Some mornings the tide brings in lots of sand dollars. This is what it brought in this morning!
by Catherine Rendon,
This past weekend we went sailing on an old wooden boat, a 30ft Morris, named “Joy”. The captain, Michael Richter, is the first mate of the R(esearch) V(essel) “Savannah” –Skidaway Oceanographic Institute’s boat. Michael and Paul are diving buddies and friends. “Joy” is heavy and slow and her teak deck is weathered. I started and finished the last of Larsen’s Millenium trilogy, my feet overhanging the bow occasionally being splashed or having the water cover my feet. The water like wall paper with a design of random cannonball jellyfish patterned here and there. On our first day out we saw four big old turtles swimming out at sea. They saw us too, big and heavy and quiet.
In the evening when we anchored we were surrounded by dolphin and were so close we could hear them breathing. They sound just like people. It was odd, looking at the night sky up on deck and hearing these familiar sighs and breaths so close by and not know them. They probably felt almost at home with our similar noises just above them. Yesterday we sailed back at a steady six knots from Hilton Head. We saw dolphins,pelicans diving and terns sitting on an old floating log, plus plenty of fish jumping. We sailed into a late summer squall/ It was beautiful. Turner would have liked all the greys. Then it was sunny again and we docked. We got back and jumped into the pool and got all the salt off ourselves. We had swum in the sea off of “Joy” but the current was ripping. We anchored near a shrimper whose anchor dragged all night and by morning he
was a distant silhouette.
