Watching the tide roll away

This morning started at 4.50 am . 

When we visited here before, we stayed in one of the other houses.  The Pier House- and had a clear view of the little harbour bay.  Otters who live in the north of the island, each day, would make their way south, just after sun rise.   I would drag myself out of bed, sit at the bedroom window and catch their little furry bodies swim and scamper down the sidings and splash away. 

I woke up early and thought, I'm going to look.  Tooli had said, If you wake, wake me too. 

I looked out and it was glorious.  Perfectly still and light. 

I tapped Tooli's door and made my way to the deck. 

We stood in silence and I turned to say something to Tooli, and she had her finger to her mouth "Shhhhhhhh".

She pointed.  I looked.    Ripples in the water. 

Mumma Otter and her two kits.  Oh my heavens I was so excited.   They scampered out of the water, onto the rocks between our pier and our bay.   We stood ,terrified to move, in case we startled them. 

We stood for over 20 minutes watching them scamper before they disappeared under the pier.  We decided to move and we walked down to the pier, to see if we could perhaps catch a glimpse. 

I want you to remember at this point that I had just dragged myself out of bed.  I was wearing a t-shirt and my knickers.  Tooli sleeps in her clothes so she was cool. 

Ten minutes later while standing on the end of the pier, in my bare feet and barely dressed, we heard a noise behind us.  And there was Himself 

He had got up for a pee, wondered where I was, and looked out the window, and spotted me in my pants on the pier and thought he would come to join us.

At that point we heard a splash in the harbour, and there was mamma and her kits pracing around there, they swam on and off the jetty and then disappeared again, only to appear on the hillside.   It was magic. 

By six thirty am we were back in bed and slept til 9.  Himself said it was like giving ourselves an extra day's holiday. 

Went back out for another sail in the late afternoon, to try and catch fish and see sea eagles.   We headed back to the dangerous Seil Sound and spent a lovely hour waiting for fish.  This time, we were prepared, with snacks and juice. 

The thing about silence is you hear all sorts of things.  As we all sat there, pretty sleepy - we heard a noise which wasn't normal. It wasn't me breathing, as I do, loudly, and it wasn't him or her farting.   

Our eyes were everywhere, all round the boat, on the shore.  And then, we spotted them.  Porpoises, bouncing up the sound to our rear.    

We contemplated this for a moment, and realised they would come back again, since the sound was closed at the top, and right on the bell, back down past us they came.  It was magical. 

Then we did another circuit of the island, and back to the jetty. 

After dinner Tooli took the boarrd out again and headed far out to sea.  She'll make it to America at this rate. 


PS Himself does have two legs.  One is just carefully hidden