POOLE DOLPHIN

A word of introduction

Goblin is an Elan 31. She was Stargazer’s predecessor. This is a picture of her in L’Aber Wrac’h. Here is the tale of her first meeting with a Dolphin.

A Dolphin’s Tale

 We’ve had a fast beat up from Poole, as the sun rises. An empty, pink tinged, horizon lies before us. We slice south, down the Swash channel.  Goblin’s stem parts a sea of the deepest blue; and sends a bow wave tumbling, musically, aft along her sides. We tack off Old Harry. I line Goblin’s forestay up on the hazy smudge of the Needles, the tide helping us eastward.

We’re off the Shingles Bank now. The sun is high in the sky. It has sucked the power out of the breeze.  Goblin rolls on the swell, barely making way under main and 110% jib. I go forward and hoist her 140% genoa, on the second luff track; before dropping the small jib. Goblin starts to gather way.

 

 I stand, loose kneed, as the foredeck rises and falls rhythmically beneath my spread feet; enjoying the sensation of Goblin coming alive again, under her enlarged rig. The cooling breeze, of her rising apparent wind, is welcome after the exertion of the sail change. I drink in the view forward. The white of the Needles, the red of the lighthouse, the bold striping of the Alum Bay cliffs, the emerald green heath above.

 

 

I feel watched. I am watched! A lone dolphin hovers, vertical in the water. He’s fully immersed, head tilted, right eye looking up at me. I move to the rail. He responds. The game is on. Away he darts, under the forefoot, behind the genoa. Hide and seek!

He reappears to port, to windward. This time he fully surfaces. Again he looks up, then he dives; disappears.

 

 

He resurfaces noisily astern and matches our slow pace alongside; dives again and rolls onto his back.

 

Beneath the bow his white form matches Goblin, move for move; mouth open – for all the world as if he’s laughing.  When I move from the bow, he moves too, and resurfaces alongside my new vantage point on the side deck.

 

The sea breeze starts to make; gusting and veering.  The genoa flogs, headed by the shift. I jump back into the cockpit, take Goblin off autopilot and nurse her back up to speed. When I look round, from the tiller, for my dolphin companion, the sea is empty. He’s tired of the game, gone off to find new playmates; left me energised and uplifted, feeling privileged to have been a part of his world for an enchanted hour.

 

The breeze settles into the South West and builds. It’ll be a fast reach down to Hurst, on the last of the flood. Goblin swoops and surfs exuberantly in the wind driven swell. Her soaring motion matches the soaring in my heart. Our encounter with the dolphin has cast a spell over both of us. That magic is too precious to break, by joining the weekend throngs, in Yarmouth or Beaulieu.

 

 I bring Goblin head to wind behind the spit at Keyhaven and drop anchor. The shingle glows a tawny gold in the setting sun, the lighthouse is a pristine white sentinel. My ears are filled with the slithering scrunch of waves on the bank; the buffeting of the breeze funneling above our protective rampart; and the cry of wild fowl, roosting, like us, for the night. Goblin lies snug in the lee of the bank, wings folded. My heart soars on.