Sandra’s Miscellany

On Saturday I took a couple hours off the writing to go sailing with my friends aboard Moonstruck… Very light winds, windex spinning from not knowing where to point, general doldrums. So we dropped the jib, fired up the engine, and putzed across the Clear Lake channel toward the Houston Ship Channel where there looked like would be some wind.

So just as we get within about two hundred yards of a shrimp boat, we saw the first fins breaking the water. In seconds we were surrounded by a pod of Atlantic bottlenose dolphins, lots of females with young ones breaking and blowing. Several swam near the sailboat and looked at us — brown-gray eyes — before deciding we weren’t very interesting. They were chasing the shrimp nets and scooping up the shrimps lifted from the Galveston Bay floor.

We watched the dolphins for a long time as we followed the shrimp boat at a distance, far enough to avoid fouling its nets but close enough to see the occasional chipped dorsal fin of a battle-scarred dolphin. The Atlantic bottlenoses are the only species to live and play around the ship channels and at the mouth of Galveston Bay; they play in the bow waves and chase boats and generally seem to enjoy themselves.

Yesterday I was back at work, and today’s another heavy day, but I hope to soon be done with all my projects. I’m ready to go camping in all this gorgeous weather we’re finally having!