Dolphins

Last night I met my neighbor in the next hut over, a guy from Belgium. We went to dinner at my favorite place (which he agreed was fantastic; another opinion is not plausible), where we met an American. I don't think I mentioned it in Gokarna, but I happened me meet my first Americans in India when I was there, a couple from San Francisco (of all places) and their kid. Anyway, I met another American, this one from Omaha, which was very exciting for me, this place being a little overloaded with Brits, Israelis, and the rest.

So this Belgian guy (I can't pronounce, let alone spell, his name) tells me he has come to Goa for a quiet place so he can write a book and corresponding screenplay. I asked what it was about and he said he was going to write a pro-drugs story, whereas pretty much every book and movie involving drugs ends in disease, despair, etc, his will have a happy ending. Interesting.

On our way back to the huts we got sucked into talking to a guy that gives rides on his boat to go see dolphins (or rather my Belgian friend did while I took a quick swim). It turned out a couple of girls were going at 8:30am and he said if they agreed we could go along. Well this morning they agreed and we went out to see the dolphins.

For the first half hour or more we didn't see anything but some birds (and gorgeous scenery, but that doesn't count in this particular case). I was beginning to be discouraged, but after going to the next beach north we struck relative gold. We saw I would guess ten or fifteen dolphins, slowly and casually coming up for air and swimming nearby. It was very cool, with the highlight being a baby, maybe just over a meter long, "jumping" (for lack of a better word) out of the water right near the boat. Very, very cool.

I checked out of the hotel and I'll be catching the train to Margao tonight. Palolem will be missed.