Late May, 2018. On the beach of Inis
I didn’t even know dolphins came to Ireland, let alone that I might actually have the chance to come in contact with one. So when this landlocked man heard that there was a dolphin wandering the shores of this tiniest of the Aran Islands, I had to see her, at least. And swim with her, if Poseidon did decree.
It was disturbingly warm in Ireland and I never thought beach time would have been on the agenda. I had come to the island for a remote residency for my writing program and was looking forward to rain and bottomless gray skies. So bleary and dismal that all I’d want to do was hunker down with pint after pint of Guinness writing like Joyce and Yeats and the moodiest and
I had been to the beach a few times, enjoying the sunset, walking on the shore, but when news of the dolphin spread, I was in the water. But by the time I arrived she was gone. Afraid I had missed her, I walked forlornly out to the dock, splashing the water, trying to communicate psychically with the cetacean that I wished to swim together. But alas, she was nowhere in sight.
I swam from the dock (or I suppose it was more of a landing, hey I don’t know crap about ocean
Lo and behold, when I was nearly to shore and ready to give up on ever seeing a dolphin outside of the dismal and abusive realms of aquariums, Dusty came up beside me.
I was the only one in the ocean. My friends were right on the beach and were quick to come out and join. But for those few magical moments, it was just Dusty and me. She swam around me, circling, rising and descending. It was more than I ever could have hoped for. How had this man born of prairie and mountains and high desert come to commune with an intelligent, sentient being of the sea? But it lasted for less than a minute.
Soon Dusty was with not just me, but John Johnson (as close as I) and Rosie (just a little farther off near the shore). In the video below, John and I are within a few feet of Dusty, she surfaced and tried to communicate via farting blowhole sounds, which we laughed at like imbecilic children. Most likely Dusty was saying: “Yo, you’re a little close. I’m kinda temperamental on account of a pretty traumatic life and I’m liable to freak out if you don’t back up!”
But did we understand? No. That’s when Dusty started slapping her tail and giving all the warning signs that she was about to go killer-whale-style on us. You see this just as the video stops. John and I hightailed it out of the water immediately. But I was a little deeper in and Dusty came charging at me. I did my fastest slow-motion ocean backpedal as Dusty came within inches of my torso and groin. She was not messing around. She wanted me the F out of her domain.
I made it out, breathless and seriously confused. Hadn’t she seen the pureness of my heart? Then a pasty Irishman came up with a bunch of lilting I-told-ya-
Video courtesy of John Johnson the human. Blowhole fart noises courtesy of Dusty the Dolphin.
Only AFTER the encounter did I read the sign that, indeed, warned of respecting the dolphin as a wild animal. News of the stupid American and the dolphin spread fast around the island. Bartenders and innkeepers alike were asking me if I was the one who almost got my ribs cracked by Dusty. Kurt and Seth, writers in my program, carried on with dolphin rape jokes. But slowly I heard more and more stories about Dusty (sometimes called Sandy) the dolphin.
Dusty is a solitary dolphin, a very rare occurrence. Sometimes known as solitary-sociable dolphins, the reasons why some dolphins end up on their own is unknown, though there are theories. Some dolphins have been known to become solitary after a family member or mate dies. I began inventing tragic stories in my head of how Dusty came to be alone. A terrible storm and she got separated from her pod, never to be found again. Maybe, like Rudolph, all the other dolphins were mean to her and never let her join in the other dolphin games. So one day in her youth she decided to run away, but when she wanted to return she could not find her pod anywhere.
What I did learn about Dusty through gossip and articles was still very sad. She had frequented another area in Doolin previously, but construction had disturbed her habitat. In the tales told, she splashed and chided the construction workers and one day one of these workers stabbed her. Another group of hooligans poured alcohol down her blowhole. It goes without saying that her relationships with humans were complicated.
In articles I found, attacks of this tempestuous solitary dolphin were reported in the BBC, the TheJournal.ie, The Irish Examiner, and all over YouTube. One article in The Guardian reports on a woman’s nearly fatal encounter with Dusty. Six spinal fractures, three broken ribs and a damaged lung later, Valerie Ryan couldn’t work for five months and was even diagnosed with PTSD. In total, there have been four to six attacks by Dusty, depending on the source.
Rather than turning this into a story about a dolphin gone mad, I think the bigger lesson is that people are dummies, myself included. Although it’s a convoluted relationship fraught with complications, the simple fact is that the ocean is Dusty’s domain, not ours. Can we hold Dusty at some fault for being a little territorial and needing some anger management lessons? Maybe, but who’s going to be more capable to change first, us or her?
I fell victim not to a diabolical dolphin, but to my own projections, anthropomorphizations
And to close things out, I thought it was funny looking into what the supposedly ancient traditions of spirit animals (but really, it’s just new age baloney sandwiches) have to say about the dolphin totem. From the highly reputable source, spirit-animals.com. Dolphin associations can include:
Glad you’re okay after the dolphin encounter and I like how you had some good take-aways at the end.