August 10, 2009
Aboard No Boundaries
You should have known it would be like this. We are the people who planned supper on Saturday night to coincide with Sunrise Earth on Discovery Channel. We used to enjoy that show very much, because it was like being anchored in a cove watching the wildlife. Tonight, we are anchored in a cove, and predictably, we are watching the wildlife.
This time it is a dolphin, or more correctly, it is two dolphins. I don’t know if “it” can be “two” but I am having a hard time with this sentence.
The fact is that in Southeast Harbor, a cove on Deer Island, Maine, there are two dolphins. They appear to be a mother and a baby, judging from the sizes of the two we have observed for more than an hour. Sometimes only the mother surfaces, and sometimes only the baby, but usually they surface together, the baby only slightly behind the mother and significantly smaller.
We first observed them in the water as we were finishing supper. We usually eat on deck or in the cockpit, because we love getting the last view of our surroundings at sunset. During our visit to Maine this time, the evening temperatures have been very cool, and we hardly ever eat out on deck. We saw this pair of dolphins surface a time or two as we were eating in the cockpit, and we continued to watch them long after our food was gone. We even went out on deck, where it was too cool to be comfortable, in order to see them better.
You may ask why we didn’t try to get pictures. It is very hard to get any meaningful pictures of dolphins just doing their thing. They come up for air and go back down. It is very graceful, and we are endlessly fascinated by trying to guess where they will appear next, but the pictures we could get would be very repetitive. It isn’t as much fun to see fifty pictures of dolphins surfacing as it is to be right there and hear them breathe and wonder where they will be next.
This is why we love cruising. Ever since our first sailing adventure on Francis Case Lake, we have loved to watch the wildlife. On Francis Case, we watched beavers and herons and even wild turkeys. We watched deer dance at the edge of the water, and when all else failed, we even watched cows. In Maine we have seen dolphins and seals and all manner of birds. It really is exciting to be so close to creation in all its variation and splendor.
So, now we have abandoned Sunrise Earth and we are watching our own sunrises and sunsets and the wildlife that comes out at those times. We thank God for the glory of his creation and we simply delight in the opportunity to see all his creatures doing what he created them to do.
There is truly nothing more magnificent than God’s creation of the earth. There is no limit to the beauty to be enjoyed and appreciated in his handiwork. We are very grateful to be here and to be in God’s hands along with all his other creatures.