I woke up, knowing it was time to leave for another remote site again. I barely had time to pack my field gear before I had to board the next plane up north. This time it was different. I couldn’t forget the Abrolhos, because every time I put on my steel-capped boots, they stank of dead lobster.
Dean met me in the airport, waiting for our charter flight. “How was fishing?” he asked.
“The fishing was good,” I told him, my voice flat.
“Did you get to swim with the dolphins? Skipper said there were heaps out there this year.” He sounded wistful, like he wished he’d been Skipper’s deckie instead of me.
“No, but I got a video of them playing around at night.” I pulled out my phone and found the video I’d recorded and not looked at since. I handed it over to him.
“Mate, it’s all black,” he told me, handing the phone back. It took me a minute to realise he was talking about the video on my phone.
“Hang on a sec.” I played with the editing software for a bit, lightening up the picture until I could see the difference between the waves, the water surface and the beach. “Try it again.”
He hit play and watched it, his mouth open. I could hear the dolphin sounds. When it finished, he played it over.
“What were the dolphins doing?” I asked.
“Those aren’t dolphins, just the sound of dolphins in the background.” He laughed. “You had me for a second there, mate. It looks like the end of a bad porn film. I’d like to borrow the porn flick you taped it off, though. She looks hot.”
I played the video and watched it. My jaw dropped, too.
I watched Vanessa rise from the water, moonlight glistening on her bare skin, and whisper her goodbye. Then she curved across the waves as gracefully as any dolphin, her tail unmistakeable as it splashed down behind her, fracturing the moonlight on the water to the depths of my dark thoughts. Further out, I saw two similar-sized tails clear the water and vanish.
Oh shit!
The tale continues in Ocean’s Infiltrator.