Dolphins and Colin the Cormorant

It’s time to say farewell to Padstow; laundry done and fridge restocked. Incidentally, I would recommend that if you sail there is to try and get one of the berths in the middle of the Inner harbour on the pontoons. The Quayside berths are prone to a deluge of cigarette ash and muck that gets blown off the road 10 ft above your head onto your deck. A gritty mixture that really needed hosing off every day together with the aforementioned Seagull Poo that’s so caustic it could take the shine of chrome. The lock gate sank beneath the incoming tide at about 1200 and, as a precaution; I refuelled on the outer harbour wall; before heading NE along the North Cornish Coast towards my fishing rendezvous in Devon. But first, I needed to overnight on Lundy Island – a nature reserve off Hartland point and guarding the entrance to ‘Barnstable or Bideford Bay’ – Yes, that’s what the bay is called on my Charts. Heaven’s above Devon make a choice and be done with it or, compromise and call it Barneford or Bidstable Bay! A high pressure weather system has settled over the UK so for the first time, in the bright warm sunshine I could go native and sail stark naked in the delicious 8-9 knot SE’ly – a perfect reaching wind and worth waiting that extra day for. The North Cornwall coast is dramatic with very few bolt holes to run to, if the weather deteriorates -made more, so by the long Atlantic swells crashing at the base of the seemingly endless cliffs. Lobster Pots are a real hazard but well marked generally by the fishermen using two or three coloured plastic footballs in a mesh net, as a float. About 2 hours into the passage a single dolphin appeared close to the boat heading in my direction. Looking for others I saw another two either side of me some 50 yards apart. Then a few seconds later I spotted in a straight line extending some 300 yards either side of the boat and about 200yards astern and following behind the three scouts perhaps a 100 or more dolphins – how do you count them! Many, I assume, mums had half sized young with them seemingly joined by invisible string that kept hem within inches of their mother. They swim effortlessly and could seemingly change direction, aspect and depth in an instant. They played with us for over 20 minutes, darting around, under and across our path. Again and again a full grown dolphin came up alongside, within 10 feet with her calf, turned on her side when coming up for air and looked me and the boat over with one watery eye. Then her calf did the same. I imagined she was saying now it’s your turn to have a look at this strange boat with strange sails. Maybe a dolphin school lesson? Among them were, what I can only assume to be, teenagers; showing off by flying out of the water next to the boat – less than 15 feet away - and landing white belly upwards with a huge splash. One kept roaring past then flying three feet out of the water and no sooner than landing than leaping again and again for a third time. What show offs, what wonderful free spirited pinnacles of evolution! I whooped with joy and called to them, laughed and marvelled at their freedom and antics and apologized out loud on behalf of the human race for messing up their seas with our rubbish, toxins and oil. Suddenly they just vanished; not faded into the distance... simply vanished. I really cannot explain it or how they did it. Quite Bizarre.
   My spirits lifted immeasurably by this wild spectacle I went below to get a cold one from the fridge and on returning to the cockpit had another memorable experience. Colin, as he is now become known, is a cormorant. A sleek star-fighter of a bird busily pruning himself, after what I can only assume, had been a good lunch - sand eel soufflé and one more brandy than he should have. He was replete and prettying himself before flying home for a night out with the lads. He’d had a bad hair day and two feathers had worked loose on the top of his head which is why I noticed him about 40 yards away 3 points off my Starboard Bow; the gap narrowing quickly. Colin suddenly noticed me and started to paddle in the opposite direction, turning his head first to the left to look at me with his green eye and then to the right to do the same. After doing this a dozen times he realised I was gaining on him, so he abruptly turned into the wind for take off, as all sensible cormorants do. I am not sure Colin had excelled at Cormorant Cranwell. He quite correctly applied full power and instructed his feet to paddle madly while desperately leaning forward with the effort of beating his long slender wings furiously to gain flying speed. His wingtips after 8 or so beats were still just clipping the surface on each stroke but, as the gap was narrowing fast, Colin decided to speed up is climb rate by, with hindsight, prematurely folding away his undercarriage. This done and neck still stretched forward and slightly arched he strived for altitude on a path that would see him pass close by my stern on the diagonal. It suddenly all went terribly wrong for Colin. At a mere two feet off the water, he flew straight into Equinox’s wind shadow – the dirty air left by the sails after extracting the power from the wind. And for Colin, without this 8-9 knot headwind, a stall was very much on the cards. Now if Colin had graduated with honours, he would have learnt that, in such an event, you drop your nose and apply more power. Colin didn’t! This was his first mistake. His second mistake was that he panicked and stiffened up. And as he did so, his wings shivered and his flight feathers lifted as the airflow failed. His third mistake was leaving them outstretched and in doing so he failed to remember his undercarriage was still in the up position. His final mistake, and most embarrassing for a cool dude cormorant, was he opted to let out a squawk of panic; because no sooner had he opened his beak to let out an utterance, he stalled in a puff of feathers chest first into an oncoming wave. He reappeared rather like Dell Boy did after falling through the open bar in Only Fools and Horses. Without giving himself a chance to reorganise his messed up flight surfaces he was off again, this time just about airborne as he passed me by, sounding just like Muttley from the Wacky Races. Wheezing and complaining! The two loose feathers on the top of his head were missing. So the boys in the bar tonight will have nothing to throw scorn at him for!
   So you find me moored to a visitor’s buoy with an extraordinary looking fishing boat and one or two other visiting yachts rocking gently in no wind and a dying sea. A perfect evening to settle down to a Jamie Oliver pasta dish and probably a sharpener or two to keep it company. Tomorrow it’s Clovelly so I’m a mere stones throw - well 12 miles or so from my next destination. A mere hop!