When you are camping alone, you have a right to talk to yourself. That is what I found myself doing one day. I knew I would get no response from the beach dogs. They had already eaten half of my lunch and partially covered themselves with sand, in preparation for a long afternoon nap. What is splashing around out past the reef? I began. That pregnant tiger shark again? Where is the dolphin pod? They wore my legs out this morning and I expect them to come back for more fun, eh? Oh, where in the world are those binoculars? Is that a diver I have been watching all this time? Yep, it does look like a person flopping around in fins that are black on one side and white on the other, or it could be the tail of a baby whale. If it is a diver, it is certainly an unusual one, for he has been standing on his head in the same place for quite some time. Hey, now, wait a second....do I see two divers now? That’s it, I can’t stand it! Determined to unravel the mystery, I geared up with wet suit, mask, fins, snorkel, film and underwater camera. Then I bounded into the surf. Spuds, one of the beach dogs, raised a sand-caked eyelid as I darted past his cool custom-dug hole. Save my place in the shade! I announced, expecting to return shortly. Hitting the waves, I could hear the underwater vocalizations of the pod of spinner and possibly spotted dolphins now cloaked in the deep blue darkness of the Pacific. After a long morning of gymnastics, they tend to rest and stay submerged for about twenty minutes at a time. For them a nap is a conscious event because at any time only one side of a dolphin’s two-sided brain sleeps. So, I didn’t know if they would invite me to play when I called out to them. As it turned out, some of them were alert--probably on pod watch--and answered, singing back a welcoming twitter. I pulled my snorkeled lips into a broad smile just in time to be adopted into an endless school of foot-long translucent needlefish. I relaxed and tried to remember how to simply be! I must have looked silly to the poker-faced reef shark that appeared to my right, ten feet below me. Its jaws, lined with jagged teeth, were sternly set. And it was on a quest, tearing a linear path too far below the surface for the sun to illuminate its turquoise hide and fluorescent blue spots that came to a point at the sharp base of its fast-moving tail. Too busy for conversation, I gathered. Still half a mile from the dolphins, at last I approached the area of curious surface activity. Looking up, I was astonished to see not one diver or even two, but three rays afloat in the water. From a distance, they appeared to be lolling around--flopping about, somersaulting, then slapping back into the water like giant manta rays I had seen playing in the Sea of Cortez. Coming closer, I realized that they were engaged in a three-way courtship dance. Not wishing to interfere with their ritual, I unobtrusively stayed near the surface. They seemed oblivious to my presence. The largest of the rays, who measured about three and a half feet in breadth and two feet long, was a mature female. One of the smaller ones was nuzzling her back.
The third, hovering like a lonesome but hopeful cowboy, was dangling in a holding pattern a few feet from their embrace. He stared longingly at the pair, and then at me. I saw an invitation in his eyes; had he been equipped with pockets, his fins would have been wedged inside them. I flitted onto the dance floor, and they welcomed my intrusion. Without the slightest hesitation the shy wallflower began flapping his pectoral wings, as if proclaiming that he saw me first! Then he glided over to greet me, swooping up to within four feet of my face. My heart gushed with delight as our eyes connected. Within seconds, the two lovers waltzed by, still infatuated with each other and playing a coy game of tag. Until then I had seen only the marshmallowy whites of their undersides. But now I was close enough to look down onto their backs of jet-black suede dotted by tiny stark-white circles with black in the center.
These are eagle rays, I announced to myself. A local fisherman had informed me the day before that eagle rays come close to the surface to mate, usually during the time the tiger sharks are giving birth among the dolphins in late July. He had said that rays, like skates and sharks, have cartilage in lieu of bones and that they bear their young alive. I looked for the barb of the stingray that I knew could inflict a serious, possibly fatal wound on humans but the ends of the six-foot bullwhip tails that waved disturbingly close to me had no barbs. I did notice, however, that they were equipped with suspicious-looking fleshy protrusions among the polka dots at the base of their fantail fins.
By the time I finished my inspection, the cowboy had glided off with the lovers. I followed them, flapping my arms and legs clumsily. Suspended in the glittering sun-kissed sea, wing tip to wing tip, they danced gracefully through the watery ballroom. Their smooth pectoral fins undulated in a slow rhythm as they breathed, forcing water through slits near their heads. It was fascinating to watch the rising of these otherwise invisible slits in their velvety skin while the water passed through their bodies.
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Eeeeooooh! sang the pod of dolphins as they entered the huge bay. Although I could hear them, I didn’t know where they were, for I was too entranced by the mercurial movements of the eagle rays which now seemed choreographed to the dolphins’ melody. Suddenly, the smaller male ray that had been tagging along behind the lovers turned around and swooped up within smooching distance of my face. I could see his mouth in the flatness of his underside. His eyes were round and protruding from the top of his head, and his nose came to a little point, which gave his face a curiously compassionate expression. He spread his white water wings out straight, whereupon I instinctively opened my arms out to my sides. My body was squarely facing his, pulse to pulse, for who knows how long. We exchanged energy as I dangled, enjoying a sense of fluidity. The ray remained stationary, not moving at all except for the extreme edges of his wings, which rippled subtly. He looked as if he wanted to touch my chest with his. Eeeeooooh! screamed the jubilant dolphins, that I could now see out the corner of my left eye. Amid their squeaks and tweets, I could feel humming sonar waves as they sized up our party. Like jealous children, they wanted attention, too, but I was not about to turn around and give up my vantage point.
Then splash...they were leaping and spinning around us in all directions, both underwater and in the air above our heads.
The dolphins’ enchanting music and acrobatics magnified the rapture of the moment, so much so that they became the designated disc jockeys for my first dance with an eagle ray!
With my face locked into an uncontrollable grin, I continued to face the ray. I pulled heavenly light down through my body and sent it out my feet and up into him. I asked him how it felt to have wings for fins. Then he began sending me images of life as a graceful shadowy symphony played on wavy white wings and a light-spattered back. All the while I could feel myself becoming a diamond-shaped ray--angular, symmetrical, and adorned with wings. Easing by in groups of three or four, the dolphins spied on our interaction, smiling and nodding like preteens sneaking peeks at young lovers at their first formal dance. Just then the full-grown languid female ray soared up between us, followed by the other male. The three of them then formed an isosceles triangle, their wings oscillating in a vague flutter to sustain the appearance of lines between the apex and the two other points of the configuration. Become one with us! us! I heard them say. Sweet emotion brought tears to my eyes, blurring the edges of their geometrical form. Soon they looked like three giant black bats performing an underwater ballet against an aqua backdrop. The dance ended when the rays slowed their movements, turned my way for one last look, then glided off in a triangular exodus to their home at the bottom of the ocean. They must have been hungry, I reasoned, and were eager to scan the ocean floor for their favorite crustacean lunch. As the svelte backs of the eagle rays dropped out of sight, the dolphins took over the party. The pod drew together, glided slowly in next to me, then began to bounce energy from one to another and on over to me, in increasing speed and intensity.
Then I saw her; the lovely albino dolphin! The blessing from Mother Ocean was complete when she sleeked by glowing ethereally. Her blue-ish white skin emitting an angelic presence. About sixty feet below the wall of dolphins coasted a giant sea turtle. Going our way? I asked with my heart. Raising its head, our new companion deftly paddled up to travel a few feet below us.
By then the sun was low in the sky, and I relented that I was too tired to push against the aggressive current that unnoticeably drags me away from dry land. I blew a kiss to the dolphins and the magnificent turtle, and kicked my way toward the beach. Our turtle friend beat me to the shore break where he immediately joined his buddies, surfing on the crystalline wave tops! Sunbeams served as backlighting; perfect for watching several of them bodysurf in their beautiful shells!
The triangular image was still warm and glowing within me as I stumbled into the shallows. I dropped my camera and grabbed my heart when a light-filled vision of a white dove with wings outspread washed over my eyes. I rose to my knees in the foam and silently thanked God and Mother Ocean for welcoming me home again for a dance of peace with the birds of the sea.. I trudged through the sand, longing to share my afternoon experiences with someone, anyone. But the only signs of life in the dry world were the beach dogs. And they were still asleep.
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