Poquoson River, Chesapeake Bay, VA
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sat 10 Nov 2007 20:18
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37:10.423N 76:23.979W
It's still chilly but the sun did make a nice
appearance this afternoon, resulting in temperatures over 60 in the cabin.
Cause for celebration for sure.
But the bigger story today is the dolphins
that decided to join us as we motored (no wind) toward our anchorage in the
Poquoson River. We saw what we thought were crab pot buoys in the
distance. Then they transformed into what we thought were birds sitting on
the surface of the water. Then we pulled out the binoculars and took a
closer look. Dolphins! A whole mess of them. I grabbed the
camera, ran to the side of the boat and yelled, 'I wish they would come over and
swim with us!'. And then they did. They must have heard me, took
pity on us and decided we were worth entertaining. About twelve of
them came right over and swam with us for close to twenty
minutes. They were right next to the boat and kept crossing back and forth
under us. The water is so clear in this part of the Chesapeake that we
could see them under the water. Unbelievable. And the noise they
made. I don't have the right words to describe the sounds. Not so
much the Flipper kind of stuff, but more the sound of water splashing as they
dove through our wake, and the snort-like sound they make when they breathe -
much quieter and more subtle than the sound the whales make when they blow, but
the same kind of idea. They probably thought I was a little odd as I kept
yelling the whole time they were with us, 'Wow! Look at that!' 'Hey, come
over here' 'Look! They went under the boat!'. I wasn't really
talking to anyone in particular, but I did fantasize that the dolphins could
actually understand me and that's why they were hanging around so much. If
so, they heard a lot of this: 'Shit!'. Every time I tried to catch
them in the air with the camera, I missed the shot. In the end, I took 57
pictures and had only one really good air shot (picture 1
below). I got about 15 other semi-decent pictures of them and
the rest captured a nice view of the frothy water on the surface after the
dolphins disappeared under it.
Throughout all of this excitement, Don calmly
piloted the boat along our course, occasionally dodging crab pot buoys (not
nearly as abundant as the lobster pot buoys in Maine, by the way) and glancing
overboard at the dolphins now and again but never saying a word. When the
excitement was over and the dolphins left us in search of someone else
to entertain, I returned to my post opposite Don and he made no comment
about my yelling and wild antics. He had either completely tuned me
out during the whole episode, or was completely aware of my wacky behavior
and decided it was in his best interest not to make mention
of it. More than likely it was the latter - Don is no
dummy. Now that I think about it though, we did have Jimmy Buffet playing
on the stereo. Maybe that's what drew the dolphins to us in the first
place and put Don in a trance. It's possible.
We head to Norfolk tomorrow (Saturday), where we
will stay for two nights and weather permitting, head south and east to St.
Thomas starting Monday morning with our new crew member on
board.
Anne
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