The Pod

The Sail Fish, a one-masted cabin cruiser, and I ran about four knots against the wind. It was a time to be alone. When a fat old sea lion shot out of the sea on a wave and landed on the deck of the Sail Fish. A pod of angry Orca swam around the Sail Fish. Two of the big ones started to ram me. I put on my life vest. Three hits, things started to get thrown around. Five hits, framing started to creek and crack. ten hits it is coming apart. I call on the radio. The GPS stops working.

“Mayday, Mayday, Mayday I am under attack by Orca. Ship is coming apart am launching an emergency life raft. The boat is sinking, and I have to leave now,” I said.

The life raft was hard to get into. I could not believe it I was in a rubber life raft. The Sail Fish was gone. All the places we had been. I could hear the Orca it got louder and then everything went upside down supplies went everywhere. I ended up in the water again. An Orca tail hit me.

I don’t remember much. The Dolphins put me back in the raft. For hours they kept the sharks away. When I woke up hours later, the sun was shining. I was surrounded by some of the supplies that had scattered when the Orca hit me. Some of my ribs were bruised, if not cracked. It hurt to breathe.

I took an inventory. All the ‘tronics were thrashed, nothing worked. I had a weeks’ worth of supplies. There was a solar still that produces a small amount of water from seawater and the sun. That’s when I noticed I was moving. A Dolphin was pulling the tow rope. After a while, the Dolphin tired, and another took its place. Where was I being taken to, and for what purpose? The Dolphins would rest every few hours. I spied an island that I seemed to be taken to after three days of travel.

When I was brought into the lagoon, a woman signaled the Dolphins and the Dolphin talked back. She did not seem happy.

I stood up, and she said, “Hello, I’m Vicky. Are you badly hurt?”

“No, couple bruised ribs.” I said, “I’m Glenn. Your friends brought me here.”

“They said a gang of mean Orca attacked you.” Vicky said, “They had to scare them off. It sounds like they were playing with you before they were going to eat you. Sometimes the Orca gangs are worse than the sharks.”

“Is there a way off the island,” I said?

“Well, yes, but it takes eight more weeks,” Vicky said, “I’m marooned here by myself for twelve weeks with my Pod of Dolphins. It’s a challenge of sorts if I can prove that I can survive with only what my dolphins bring me. I get a contract to do month-long sea tours at $10,000 a pop. With up to ten people. If I call in tomorrow and say you want to be rescued, they have to send a ship. That will end this test this season. I will have to wait until next season, and somebody else could try to compete with me. Say that you will stay marooned with me for the rest of the eight weeks when I call in in the morning. There is something about the pod I want to learn.”

I said, “I don’t know what to think. You’re cute and all but eight weeks marooned on an island. There was the insurance for the boat, and what was I going to eat?”

“You can have the insurance filled out over the radio. The Dolphins will bring us dinner from the sea. What do you like? You can be like one of my clients. I’ll care for you. Would you mind staying with me? Don’t ruin the test. I don’t have anything else to offer,” Vicky said.

“Let me see an evening meal and a decent night's sleep, and I give you an answer in the morning,” I said.

Vicky said, “What would you like for dinner?”

I said, “Mahi Mahi.”

I wanted to see just how smart these Dolphins were. Would we get just fish, or would it be Mahi? It seemed to be awfully convenient.

Vicky went to the lagoon, and in a few minutes, one of the Dolphins came to her. She and I had a short conversation. Then she came back to me.

Vicky said, “You might want to come and watch this.”

She showed me a place on the point where I could see a good area of the ocean. Vicky pointed out a sea pen below me. After about forty minutes, the three Dolphins were off the point, swimming erratically toward the pen. Slowly they made their way to the stone enclosure. When suddenly, a Mahi Mahi made a death-defying leap into the pen. The Dolphins swam around and jumped into the air making squeals of delight.

Vicky said, “There is your dinner.”

“Impressive,” I said.

Vicky said, “I want a pod of ten. One dolphin for each client. I need to show that I can provide for a customer.”

“What if I had asked for shark fin soup,” I said?

Vicky said, “There are things that are not on the menu. Things I will not cook, sorry. Things like turtle soup. Calamari is harder. Lobster is pretty easy. Most fish are good. Bluefin tuna every once and a while, things like that. I need to show I can provide a luxury or two as a surprise.

I had just set up the client’s tent, with a bed set up. I took pictures to do a layout for a brochure as a test tryout to pass the time. I got solar power, a computer, cameras, and little else.

I said, “I’m not much of a tech man. You seem to have a nice set up here do you own the island?”

“No, this is an island that the corporation owns that it might be willing to do such an enterprise on in the future,” Vicky said. “They have several islands they might be interested in setting up. They are not sure what they want to do with the islands and need some convincing.”

Vicky made her way to the sea pen below the point. I followed. The path seemed well warn.

Vicky said, “It was the change in thinking that allowed me to really communicate with the pod. Then the decision to change the environment to a fuller, richer one with better subject matter has really paid off.

I said, “Are you the only one who can talk to the Dolphins?”

“Yes,” said Vicky, “But what I have learned I can teach to my students. It was a trick in the way the dolphins think. I changed from the concept of I, and it opened a whole new pathway. Dolphins think in terms of the pod. Never I, you must do we, somehow, they know what they are going to do. They can read each other’s minds. They are going to teach me how to pod think, but I was not a pod. They said it took two to be a pod and learn to pod think. So, I’m afraid here you are. I did not know any other way to put it. When I found out that they told the Orca to smash your boat, I did not know what to say. I had no idea that they could communicate to the Orca. It would be best if you learned this pod think with me. If we only learn to read each other’s minds.”

Over the next eight weeks, the dolphins showed us how they talked when they swam. Directly into your mind. And how you knew what the pod was thinking when it moved all of the time.

Vicky and Glenn learned to move as one mind.