Dolphin escort

We began our voyage to the Sea of Cortez on Saturday, October 25th, crossing under San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge at 3:05 pm headed to San Diego. The crew was Patrick, myself, and our hired Captain Ralph and his wife Arlene. Since we have never cruised in an ocean on a sailboat, we hired some knowledgeable hands to make sure we had a chance to learn the ropes. It was fantastic. Our little boat (a 2001 Lagoon 380 catamaran) is a fine and fast boat. We only sailed for a few hours the whole trip, and mostly ran our engines 24/7.

At midnight on the second day at sea, my watch was ending when a pod of dolphins visited our boat. The water was full of phosphorescence and the dolphins were outlined in glowing green, and their path behind them stayed illuminated for a few moments. About 20 of them began playing in the wake of our twin bows. I crawled out onto the nets that stretch in between the boat's pontoons and laid down. I was suspended just a feet or two directly above the dolphins while they played. All I could do was laugh since they were having soo much fun and were so joyful. One of them turned on his side and looked at me. When he jumped out of the water, he chittered at me, just like I was laughing at him. I could have touched them if I tried, but I didn't want to bother them. They played for about 15 minutes and then disappeared back into the ocean. I hope never to forget that moment.

Arriving in San Diego on October 29th, I departed the boat to return to Washington to our son Jack and Rudy (our dog). Patrick continues on in the boat with Ralph, Arlene, and a former co-worker of Patrick's who took my place. Currently they are off the coast of the Baja Peninsula, wearing shorts and T's and catching tuna. They hope to be arriving in Cabo on November 5th. Once they get to La Paz, Jack, Rudy and I will be flying down to join them, hopefully around the 10th or 11th of November. And then, I can relax.

Laura