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The Palmyra Mutt
We used to go fishing every evening in the dinghy, trolling in the
lagoon along the inside reef edge. Sharon would sit in the bow
with her rod out over one side and I would be aft, running the little
outboard, with my rod out the other side. It was a tranquil time,
the purpose being to get supper. That was until Navy, one of the native
dogs on the island, took up fishing too. He would love to come with us,
occupying the center thwart, a transverse seat in the middle of the
little boat. We had a hard dinghy, about eight feet long, and quite
tippy. Navy would get extremely excited as he saw all the fish from
that vantage point, and would leap from side to side in ecstasy,
barking wildly at all the fish. The lagoon was, of course, teeming with
fish, having been seldom inhabited by man. His performance would, to
put it mildly, spoil the mood. The net result is that rather than start
the dinghy motor when we set off from the yacht, I would row ever so
quietly until we were around the corner and well out of sight of Navy.
Then, once out of his sight, I would start up and try to ‘escape’.
Invariably, what would happen is that he would hear us and make his way
as far as he could towards us on the shore, and then jump in and swim
after us. We would end up feeling guilty, seeing his little head
eagerly following us, especially in view of the density of sharks in
the lagoon, and turn around and pick him up. Then, once aboard, he
would add to our frustration by shaking the water off his fur all over
us and then proceed to thoroughly spoil our otherwise peaceful evening
excursion.
Anyway, all this had taken place on one otherwise tranquil evening. I
was not really concentrating too hard on where I was steering and
accidentally steamed up to a rather large manta ray who was also lazily
collecting supper on the surface. He was about seven or eight foot
diameter, a significant fish. He got the fright of his life at the very
last moment and instinctively leapt out of the water, right over the
bow of the boat. It sure woke us up, tipped the dinghy and sloshed
water all over us. Once we recovered from the immediate shock, we
looked down, and there was Navy, lying in the bottom of the dinghy, his
eyes rolled back so only the whites were showing, his rear legs
twitching madly. The dog had fainted from a sheer overdose of
excitement. After a few seconds he came to. Immediately the tail shot
between the legs and he scrambled out of that dinghy as if the very
devil was after him and swam for the shore. He never did join us
fishing again!
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