Identity Issues

That sharp sweeping black
fin and that shiny solid black
back moving through the water:
porpoise sighting from kayak-
back a mile-and-a-half-and-change
out in Half Moon Bay.

The porpoise wasn't surging
with that sinuous
up-and-down
mojo that I'm used
to viewing -- to feeling --
so I wondered if
I'd observed a faulty
identification.

Motions and emotions,
shall we say, mixed.

I'm a diver, you know,
neoprene-blubbered,
rubber-finned and masked,
and -- yet -- I didn't bother
to dip in, didn't slip free,
but kept to the yellow
deck of my kayak,
tasking myself with ill humor.
Swimming with any marine
mammal is awfully
awesome, but a shiny
black back cutting
through the salt
could be a great
white joke.

--MD




P.S.  My kayak-partner JP reports that there'd been a caution posted for kayakers (that we missed before heading out) that a 12-foot GWS had been sighted the last few days roaming the area just off Pillar Point Harbor, so that may not have been a porpoise, actually, after all.