Dolphins!

Position: 38°02’17″N 22°48’42″E

You need dolphins – lots of dolphins! Crossing the Gulf of Corinth a couple dozen dolphins took a shine to Aleta and played in her bow wave for a good 30 minutes. As every mariner knows, dolphins are harbingers of good fortune. Besides, they have an advanced sense of humour and egos to match.

Video: Dolphins!

As our dolphins sped along in front and alongside of us, I wondered if they were trying to tell us something? I recalled Bernard Moitessier’s fantastic story about meeting porpoises during the Golden Globe race in 1968. They saved his life, ensured his winning of the race*, and helped him transcend the physical world all at the same time. Gotta love porpoises (and dolphins).

Because it is Bastille Day, and Bernard’s story is way cooler than even our awesome encounter, here it is excerpted from his book The Long Way.

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THE LONG WAY

“I hear familiar whistlings and hurry out, as always when porpoises are around. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many at once. The water is white with their splashing, furrowed in all directions by the knives of their dorsal fins. There must be close to a hundred.

I would like to shoot some film, but it is too dark; the shots would not turn out, and I have no film to waste. An hour ago they would have given me the most beautiful pictures of the trip, with the sun all around.

A tight line of 25 porpoises swimming abreast goes from stem to stern on the starboard side, in three breaths, then the whole group veers right and rushes off at right angles, all the fins cutting the water together and in the same breath taken on the fly.

I watch, wonderstruck. More than ten times they repeat the same thing. Even if the sun were to return, I could not tear myself away from all this joy, all this life, to get out the Beaulieu. I have never seen such a perfect ballet. And each time, it is to the right that they rush off, whipping the sea white for thirty yards. They are obeying a precise command, that is for sure. I can’t tell if u is always the same group of 20 or 25, there are too many porpoises to keep track. They seem nervous; I do not understand. The others seem nervous too, splashing along in zig-zags, beating the water with their tails, instead of playing with the bow, the way they usually do. The entire sea rings with their whistling.

Another pass from stern to stem, with the same abrupt, graceful turn to the right. What are they playing at today? I have never seen this… Why are they nervous? Because they are nervous, I am sure of it. And I have never seen that, either.

Something pulls me, something pushes me. I look at the compass. Joshua is running downwind at 7 knots straight for Stewart Island, hidden in the stratus. The steady west wind had shifted around to the south without my realizing it. The course change was not apparent because of the quiet sea, without any swell, on which Joshua neither rolled nor tossed. Usually, Joshua always lets me know of course changes without my having to look at the compass if the sky is overcast. This time, she couldn’t.

I drop the mizzen staysail, then trim the sheets and set the wind vane for a beat. We are certainly more than 15 miles from the Stewart Island rocks. But since when has Joshua been heading for the stratus-hidden coast? Was it before the porpoises’ last pass, with their right-angle turn? Or before they showed up, even before their first demonstrations?

I go below to put on my foul weather gear, as it is drizzling and there is spray now that we are closehauled. The wind has eased but not dropped, in spite of the drizzle. I wipe off my hands carefully and roll myself a cigarette, nice and dry in the cabin. I wonder about the porpoises, whose whistles I can still hear. I try to detect a difference in the loudness of the whistling.

I am not sure there is any difference. It would be extraordinary if there were. But my ear is not keen enough, my auditory memory for sounds may be tricking me. If I were blind I could say for sure; the blind remember all sounds exactly. I do not know any more. It is so easy to make a mistake, and then believe anything. And to say anything at all.

I go back on deck after just a few drags on my cigarette. There are as many porpoises as before. But now they play with Joshua, fanned out ahead, very gay movements I have always known.

And then something wonderful happens: a big black and white porpoise jumps ten or twelve feet in the air in a fantastic somersault, with two complete rolls. And he lands flat, tail forward. Three times he does his double roll, bursting with a tremendous joy, as if he were shouting to me an all the other porpoises: “The to man the right understood that we were trying to tell him to sail to the right… you understood… you understood… keep on like that, it’s all clear ahead!”

Standing in my foul weather gear, boots and leather gloves, I hold one of the windward mainmast shrouds. Nearly all my porpoises are now swimming on the windward side as well. That surprises me some more.

Now and then they roll onto their sides, their left eyes clearly showing. I think they are looking at me. They must see me very well, thanks to the yellow foul weather gear, which stands out against the white of the sails above the red hull.

My porpoises have been swimming around Joshua for over two hours. The ones I have met in the past rarely staved more than a quarter of an hour before going on their way. When they leave, all at once, two of them remain behind until twilight, a total of five full hours. They swim as if a little bored, one on the right, the other on the left.

For three hours longer they swim like that, each isolated on his own side, without playing, setting their speed by Joshua’s, two or three yards from the boat. I have never seen anything like it. Porpoises have never kept me company this long. I am sure they were given the order to stay with me until Joshua was absolutely out ol danger.

I do not watch them all the time, because I am a little worn out by the day, by the terrific tension you do not feel at the moment, when you have to give everything you’ve got to pass into a new ocean.

I stretch out on the bunk for a little while, come up on deck, read the log, have a look around. My two porpoises are still there in the same place. I go below to mark the latest run on the chart, and lie down for a moment again. When I go on deck and climb the mast for the tenth time, to see further, my porpoises are still there, like two fairies in the waning light. I go below and close my eyes for a rest.

This is the first time that I feel such peace, a peace that has become a certainty, something that cannot be explained, like faith. I know I will succeed, and it strikes me as perfectly normal: that is the marvellous thing, that absolute certainty where there is neither pride nor fear nor surprise. The entire sea is simply singing in a way that I had never known before, and it fills me with what is at once question and answer.”

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* Yeah, yeah. Moistessier would have won the race had he not decided to skip the finish and head straight for Tahiti instead. The first solo, single handed 1.5x around the world finisher never wanted to get off his boat. Read A Voyage for Madmen by Peter Nichols for more on the Golden Globe race. It contains a remarkable set of characters, most of whom were truly bonkers in one way or another.