Walk in the ocean
Grayhadfeltnothinglike this before—more than anticipation, more than excitement, it was absolute awe.As he watched, Marta maneuvered the boat to align with the gate of Abaco and Anejo's canal pen.Each pen along the canal had a gate allowing the dolphins to swim out and join the boat as it headed out to the open ocean.Cici quickly jumped out and with a swift motion, dropped the gate.The two big boys, who had been impatiently waiting, raced out into the canal.Cici pulled the gate back up and secured the latch before hopping onto the already moving boat in one fluid movement.
Gray's heart pounded in his chest.They let them out, so why didn't Abaco and Anejo take off into the ocean, never to be seen again?
"Umm, where are they?"Gray asked, scanning the water, thinking they had indeed left.
"Oh, hmmm," Cici mused, pretending to look around while Marta steered the boat toward the main canal entrance.The Lagoon was an offshoot, but it was also close to the ocean.
Marta laughed."Don't worry, Gray!They're being pesky boys and have gone to talk smack with Nemo down the block!"
Sure enough, as Gray looked down the docks, he saw three dorsal fins, two in the canal and one in the adjacent pen, creating quite the vortex in the water.The dolphins were splashing around, moving side to side, racing up to the pen and then back out, just as they had done with the pilings.They moved in total unison, as if they were one dolphin.And with the noise they were making, Gray couldn't wrap his head around the amount of squawking and squeaking he was hearing.
"Okay, and why are they doing this?"Gray asked, still trying to make sense of it.
"Well, yesterday, Nemo decided he was the big man around here at the ripe old age of 7 years old.When he swam past Abaco and Anejo on his way back to his pen, he did a little fake-out and some smack talk of his own, like he's the only dolphin that goes out to the ocean.They're letting him know who's really in charge, and it's always going to be them!Punks, all of them!"Cici said while organizing the coolers.Each cooler had a label with a dolphin's name, ensuring they got the correct fish, though Gray still hadn't figured out how trainers always knew which dolphin got what.And from the looks of it, there were a lot of fish in those coolers.
"Are you going to make them follow us?"Gray asked, trying to understand how this all worked.
Both women burst into laughter."Make them?Wow, you really haven't grasped how freaking big they are, have you?We can't make them do anything!They'll come when they're done being twerps.They know where we're going," Marta explained, still chuckling.
"How on earth do they know where you're going?"
"It's pretty simple," Marta said."We usually take the canal south out to the ocean.We rarely go through the canals to the north with them; there are too many twists and turns, so it's easy to get lost.Once we reach the ocean, there's a cut in the reef that only the boat can go through during low tide; otherwise, we'd run aground.These boys have swum this route thousands of times.They can go over the reef wherever they want, but they'll hear the boat and follow.And if they still haven't come when we get out there, we have an emergency signal, but that's for emergencies only, not fighting with Nemo."
Gray's head was spinning—canals, reef cuts, emergency signals.He was about to ask another question when he noticed something on the canal floor that looked like a pipe.
"What's that?"he asked, pointing at the object as the boat passed over it.
"Ahh, yes, the pipe of doom!"Marta said with a mock-serious tone.
"Yes, that pipe is the scariest thing in the world!"Cici added with a laugh."Every single dolphin we've trained to go out to the ocean is terrified of that damn thing.It can take us a year or more to train them to follow the boat, find the cut in the reef, respond to the emergency signal, and all of that is easy compared to getting them to swim over a pipe that's 15 feet underwater!You'd think it was a sea monster ready to swallow them whole with the way they dramatize it!"
"She's right!"Marta chimed in."Nemo was acting like a punk yesterday because after five months of training, he finally 'leapt' over the pipe, and we made it to the end of the canal."She moved to mimic Nemo's exaggerated leap out of the water."Gawd, it was the funniest thing.His eyes were all wild, and once we got past the pipe, he was all casual, like it was never a big deal.Five months of fear, and now he's over it like it was nothing!"
"If it's such a big deal for them, why not just remove the pipe?"Gray asked, genuinely curious.
Marta stopped the boat, and both she and Cici stared at him."Remove the pipe?That pipe feeds water to the houses on that side of the canal," Marta explained, pointing to the east side where Gray could barely see part of a house."The residents wouldn't be too pleased if it disappeared.And look, here come our boys!"
Gray turned to see what looked like two enormous grey torpedoes racing through the water to catch up to the boat.Apparently, they'd made their point to Nemo and were now ready to join the "walk" in the ocean.
"I knew they were big," Gray thought, "but holy, they re incredible!"
Chapter 20
Tiger shark
NowthatAbacoandAnejo were swimming beside the boat, Cici tossed a few fish, which the dolphins easily caught.
"You know, no one ever explained to me why the dolphins go back home with you and don't stay out in the ocean?"Gray asked as he watched Cici throwing fish to each dolphin as they surfaced beside the boat.
"It's our number one question we get every day."Cici reached down and opened up all the coolers she had in the boat and motioned to them."This is all their food for the day, about 20 pounds for each of them."At this, she threw a few fish to Abaco and Anejo.Once they had swallowed them whole, she then motioned with her arm in a tight circular motion, twisting from her elbow like she was winding up an airplane propeller.As soon as she finished the motion, the boys jumped backwards away from the boat, diving down at least 10 feet.The water was so clear that Gray saw them perfectly, and then they exploded out of the water, both dolphins spinning like a corkscrew in the air.He let out a whoop and clapped.
"That was amazing!But I still don't understand why they don't leave."As he said this, Abaco and Anejo came back to the boat, and Cici gave them each a handful of fish so big the dolphins let the fish dribble out the sides of the mouths, taking their time picking them up.It seemed like a lot of fish for doing one spin, though it was spectacular.
"Think of it this way," Cici continued as Marta slowly drove the boat further out into the ocean."If every time you walked into your living room I handed you $1,000, where would you spend your time?"Both women smiled, knowing what Gray would say.
"Obviously, I'd keep walking into my living room waiting for you to give me $1,000.Geez, I'd be rich and never leave!"Gray said, waiting to see where this was going.
