Dolphin Tales

Ever since Mark’s book, F/V Black Sheep, came out, people have been intrigued by his story about dolphins in the last chapter of the book. Some are skeptical, others are thrilled and enchanted. As Mark says, “I was the only one there that day, what more can I say?” It’s true. But there is plenty of support for the story.

The ancients believed absolutely in the mysterious ability of dolphins to sense danger and try to help. Both Plutrarch and Herodatus wrote about strange and mysterious dolphin encounters by sailors who had been washed overboard or whose boats had sunk. A number of saints in early Catholic legends are said to have been rescued by dolphins and Thoreau has quite a supportive dolphin tale in Walden Pond. More recently there are no shortage of stories about remarkable dolphin encounters. My friend Ted, a lifelong lobsterman off the coast of Cape Ann, tells wonderful tales of dolphins he encountered over his many years of fishing here.

Recently I was reading an article by mystery/humor writer Carl Hiaasen who was bemoaning the fact that, as the world gets weirder and weirder, it gets harder and harder for a writer like himself to come up with good stories. As the saying goes, you can’t make this stuff up. As a reporter for the Miami Herald, Hiaasen covered a story about a couple of mischievous male bottlenose dolphins who had discovered a fun trick. People had recently started coming to Florida to swim with dolphins and were paying $50 a pop to do that. These dolphins were having quite a good time with their human admirers by coming up behind them and poking them with their — um — male appendages. The dolphins thought this was great fun and, at times, got quite a bit friendlier than the humans were prepared for. Hiaasen used the story in one of his novels as a means of disposing of a bad guy who had gotten too bad to be useful to the story. Death by dolphin love — nobody ever used that one before, I bet.

There was also a story in the news not long ago about a toddler who fell overboard while out boating with his parents. The kid was wearing a life jacket but, with the wake and a choppy sea, was soon way too far from the boat for the parents to reach him. A couple of dolphins rescued the little boy by coming up on either side of him and carrying him to safety. Quite a feat.

I don’t know what happens out there in the big salty when things get freaky. I’ve read so many astonishing stories about humpback whale encounters that it seems only natural that dolphins, who are alleged to have higher than average IQs, should be equally remarkable in their interaction with humans. Many of the old legends of rescue by mermaids were more than likely actually dolphin rescues. When you are half-drowned and out of hope, a dolphin that carries you to safety has got to look pretty good. The bottomline is this, dolphins know that humans are different than they are and that they have abilities that humans lack. And, for whatever reason, dolphins are willing to use their amazing ability to breathe in the water and to swim long distances to help out their frailer and less gifted fellow-mammals. A wonderful thing.

But the most fascinating thing I have learned since working on Mark’s book is that very often when a human has a direct dolphin encounter there is an amazing rush of memories that gets triggered. As if, in some way, the dolphin somehow releases a function in the brain that touches off floods of memories — to the point where therapists working with clients suffering severe memory repression are beginning to recommend a swim with dolphins.

If that is the case, it pretty much validates Mark’s entire book. The encounter with the dolphins was the beginning of a flood of memories that he began recording until they formed the 31 stories that make up his book. Everyone who reads the book will have to draw their own conclusions — but the more I learn, the more I am awed by how F/V Black Sheep came to be.

Thanks for reading.