Sometimes you know them by sound first: someone on deck calls out, everyone rushes to one side. Then, in the water, as if through glass, the grey backs appear. As the boat runs, they slip just ahead of the bow and give themselves to the invisible wave the hull pushes forward. They seem to swim without ever stroking.
Three kinds are seen most often in the Aegean: the big, round-browed bottlenose; the slimmer one with striped flanks; and the quick, offshore one that moves in pods. But a sailor doesn't sort them by species. To him they are all the same thing: a guest that has chosen to come alongside.
Why the Bow?
Science can pin it to something dull: the pressure wave that builds ahead of the boat carries them forward without effort, exactly like a surfer's wave. Energy saved, perhaps. But when you see the same animal leap clear at the crest, turn on its side and look back at you, the word "saving" falls short. What looks like play, most of the time, really is play.
Sailors in Disguise
The old sailor counted them as good fortune; to harm a dolphin was shameful, unlucky. The Greeks even made a story of it: one day, when pirates seized the god Dionysus, he cast them into the sea and turned them into dolphins. Ever since, dolphins have been sailors in disguise; which is why they come so close, so friendly. In another tale, a dolphin charmed by the poet Arion's song took him on its back and carried him to shore. The story changes, the core does not: the dolphin is the hand the sea holds out to us.
They have even reached the sky. On summer nights, high overhead, there is a small but tidy constellation: Delphinus, the Dolphin. To find it while stargazing at anchor is to catch the guest from the daytime bow keeping its night watch.
You cannot order them. No bait, no call will do; the sea gives them, or it doesn't. Perhaps that's the best of it. The day they come is a day set apart; the day they don't, the sea teaches you patience. Both are part of the passage. Then a back gleams once more, and you're left watching the direction they've gone.
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