A Dream Partially Met
Don't tell me there is no magic in the world.
We went to Santa Cruz a few weeks ago for our anniversary, and we stayed in a compact vacation cottage literally around the corner from the ocean: a small road led out to a promontory where three solid, narrow fingers of rock formed two mini-coves between two beaches.
Our first night there, we arrived at the cottage in time to witness the sunset turning the water to a metallic, pastel sheen, and frolicking within the cove were two sea otters, not fifty yards away from us. One of my goals each time I've been to Santa Cruz since my return to California has been to see another sea otter, as one of my fondest childhood memories is that of seeing a sea otter floating beneath the pier.
The sea otters we saw that evening we named Phil and Peggy, because that was just obvious.
The next night, there were five otters larking about, showing no fear of the humans in the nearby cove or on the bluff, because they clearly know the ocean is theirs, not ours. In addition to Phil and Peggy, we saw Prescott, Petunia, and Pontius.
We were thrilled to be so close to otters, even though they moved too quickly for a good picture. And that was when I saw the dolphin. It was just the dorsal fin and a bit of the back, but it was enough. The dolphin cut in and out of the coves for a short time before disappearing. He never came all the way out of the water, but I was struck by how big he was.
This was the first time I've ever seen a dolphin in the wild; as a kid, I saw the dolphins at Marine World, but this was something else. And it is the closest I have come to fulfilling my desire to see a whale in the wild again--stemming from the memory of seeing a pod off the Fort Ross coast when I was five or six.
Actually, dolphins and whales are related, so I guess that probably counts, huh?
It was an elegant, simple statement by nature that our world is so limited, despite the damage we do to the environment and the ocean. There is magic out there, the magic of seeing these animals in their natural environment, an environment that beckons us even as we need technology to negotiate it.
It was a sublime experience, in every sense of the word, and I was as happy as I can remember being at any time.
We went to Santa Cruz a few weeks ago for our anniversary, and we stayed in a compact vacation cottage literally around the corner from the ocean: a small road led out to a promontory where three solid, narrow fingers of rock formed two mini-coves between two beaches.
Our first night there, we arrived at the cottage in time to witness the sunset turning the water to a metallic, pastel sheen, and frolicking within the cove were two sea otters, not fifty yards away from us. One of my goals each time I've been to Santa Cruz since my return to California has been to see another sea otter, as one of my fondest childhood memories is that of seeing a sea otter floating beneath the pier.
The sea otters we saw that evening we named Phil and Peggy, because that was just obvious.
The next night, there were five otters larking about, showing no fear of the humans in the nearby cove or on the bluff, because they clearly know the ocean is theirs, not ours. In addition to Phil and Peggy, we saw Prescott, Petunia, and Pontius.
We were thrilled to be so close to otters, even though they moved too quickly for a good picture. And that was when I saw the dolphin. It was just the dorsal fin and a bit of the back, but it was enough. The dolphin cut in and out of the coves for a short time before disappearing. He never came all the way out of the water, but I was struck by how big he was.
This was the first time I've ever seen a dolphin in the wild; as a kid, I saw the dolphins at Marine World, but this was something else. And it is the closest I have come to fulfilling my desire to see a whale in the wild again--stemming from the memory of seeing a pod off the Fort Ross coast when I was five or six.
Actually, dolphins and whales are related, so I guess that probably counts, huh?
It was an elegant, simple statement by nature that our world is so limited, despite the damage we do to the environment and the ocean. There is magic out there, the magic of seeing these animals in their natural environment, an environment that beckons us even as we need technology to negotiate it.
It was a sublime experience, in every sense of the word, and I was as happy as I can remember being at any time.
posted by Devin at 3:58 PM
1 Comments:
Lovely, Devin! Thanks for writing about this. Did you mean to say the world is "so limited"? I almost thought you meant the opposite?
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