I was out in my kayak fishing yesterday. I was by myself. It was a little overcast and the wind was just starting to pick up a little. Being alone on the water, your mind wonders. I had been in one spot for a while and the thought occurred to me that I should probably move. I started to paddle slowly. There were flourishes of activity, mullet would occasionally jump out of the water. They might jump if a predator was chasing them but I believe most of the time they do it because they dream of flying. Seldom do they jump just once, the average mullet leaps 3 or 4 times before they determine that they can’t fly this time. The fist jump just tests the surface of the water, on the second one they give it all they got. That’s when it happened.
I was gliding along the ocean surface. He had visions of Cormorants and flying fish. My paddle came up from the water. He tested the barrier between air and water. I heard the gurgle and looked directly to my right. He dipped below the surface swimming has hard as he could, tail thrashing, thinking THIS could be the one, the jump that turns into a flight! With joy in his heart and determination in his fins he rocketed to the surface, he reached escape velocity, he was flying!
Time stopped. Our eyes locked. I must have looked as big as a container ship to him. His eyes opened wider if that is even possible, his mouth silently mimed oooOOOOOOHHHHHSSSH. There it was, pure unadulterated fear, he knew it would end badly for him, I saw it in his eyes. I was only seeing what was happening, not thinking, just being controlled by the moment. He braced for the inevitable. My wrist and arm reflexively jerked. It was only a slight deviation of the paddle’s next stroke. The black carbon fiber paddle’s altered trajectory caught him on the port side. This was not what he was expecting. It wasn’t a crushing blow, there was no malice in the swat, it turned out to be a bunt down the 3rd base line.
It was over before we both knew it. I stopped paddling, just now thinking about what had happened. He was back in familiar territory swimming a little sideways pulling to port
, a little numb but nothing serious. Flying was to dangerous today, perhaps tomorrow . . .