Lilly-Livered Land Lubbers

I have always had a pretty good memory, so good in fact that my cousin Mark used to make fun of me when we were kids for bringing up stuff that happened years prior. However, as I get to be an old man (33 going on 65), some of my memories are getting hazy - and there are some that sometimes feel like maybe I dreamt them. This past week at the shore, one memory in particular kept coming to mind, and I caught myself wondering if I had the details of what transpired correct in my head. Today, after talking to someone else who was there, I have my confirmation. I'm not crazy, and this really happened.

It was the summer of '88, and I was in the Outer Banks with the Alessi family of Overbrook. They had always been very good to me, and it was through their extreme generosity that I took the only two vacations of my childhood. They had brought me along to North Carolina the previous year as well, and I had one of the best times of my life spending the week with my friends Tommy and Jamie, and their parents and two younger siblings. The first day we arrived it was raining pretty heavily, so we were stuck in the rental house playing Boggle and reading the house books (one of which was "Jaws"). The second day the sun was out and we were extremely psyched to get into the ocean - we arrived at the beach only to be greeted by wooden "Hammerhead Shark Warning: Beach Closed" signs. On the third day, the signs were gone - and we were free to go into the water. Mr. Alessi had picked up a yellow and black two-man raft for the boys to use, and we couldn't wait to try it out. Naturally, all three of us (Tommy, Jamie and I) piled into the raft and began paddling out over the breakers.

We got a good distance from the shoreline and were feeling pretty good about ourselves. We were admiring the distance from shore that we had attained when one of us (as best as we can remember, Tommy) felt a bump from under the raft. "Did you guys feel that?", asked Tom. Neither Jamie or I had noticed anything. Less than a minute later there came a second bump, and there was no mistaking it. All three of us froze, not moving a muscle except for looking out of the corners of our eyes - out over the edge of the raft. Then came a third bump - and this one shook the raft somewhat. Very shortly thereafter, a fin rose out of the water not 5 feet from the right edge of our raft. This was all we needed to see, as once the blood drained from our faces Tom and I put the paddles in the water and "paddled like crazed idiots". I assure you two teenagers from West Philly have never paddled faster than we did - not even at the Dad Vail Regatta. When we got to within 100 feet of shore, without any announcement whatsoever, Tommy leaped from the raft and swam for the beach. Jamie and I froze in shock (Tom's account: "at the last second, I jumped out to manually pull the raft to shore"). He did indeed help pull us in from the shallows, but an announcement on his part prior to taking this action would have kept me from yelling "Tommy, NOOOOOOO!" at the top of my lungs.

Upon our sweet return to land, we found a pretty good-sized group of people (including the Alessi parents and younger siblings) snapping away with their cameras. A few of them, including Mrs. Alessi, rushed over to and asked rather excitedly, "Hey! Did you guys see those dolphins? You guys looked like you were pretty close!". All three of us responded at the same exact moment and in the same exact pitch: "DOLPHINS?!?!?!?".

Our faces must have been classic at this moment of realization. We had apparently paddled right into the midst of a school of dolphins. Dolphins that apparently wanted to play with us. I have agonized over this from time to time over the past 17-18 years. I mean, how many chances in your life (unless you are an Onassis or something) do you get to just hang out with dolphins? Something my old friend The Admiral said today helped ease the pain: "Let's face it. We're not qualified to tell the difference between a shark fin and a dolphin fin. And when something nudges your little raft, you don't ask questions". He was right. The "crazed idiots" reaction and escape tactic was the right move. Less than 24 hours after a hammerhead shark warning, discretion was the better part of valor.

Thankfully this incident occurred before the ultra-availability of video cameras and the YouTube.com revolution. We would have been immortalized as the three city kids paddling with our arms flying faster than Fred Flinstone's feet while driving, with afraid-to-blink eyes as wide as saucers, screaming and cursing and near-crying for a five-minute stretch that felt like it lasted an eternity. It probably looked so funny that we might have taken the place of the monkey that passes out after smelling his own butt video that was passed around by everyone during the infancy of email and the World Wide Web.

After our heart rates slowed and we got over the initial shockwave of shame, we attempted to paddle back out to where we originally got nudged. But alas, our sea-bound mammalian friends were nowhere to be found.

(As an aside, I actually wish someone HAD gotten this on tape. I don't think my retelling captures the fear or the hilarity of what transpired. I mean, three city kids paddling for their lives from what they thought was a shark attack, only to find out in fromt of 50 people that they had actually successfully escaped a school of dolphins? It would be classic video.)

[Currently Listening: Blondie - "The Tide Is High"]