Just beyond the boat, the gray ocean turns green. Effervesces--a twenty-foot circle of bubbles. I'm the closest one to it; the crew doesn't see. Then the water darkens back to normal and, though it's quiet, something is happening--something private only _I_ can feel. I look quickly through the rain-dribbled window for Thayer, but I don't have time to get him. I'm trembling. I can't afford to look away. She breaches. Nose first, her grooved back heads straight for the sky. Her muscular tail clears the water; her fins are black wings. The fall back is slower--grace instead of power. She cracks the ocean and, in a white explosion of foam, reenters. I've seen her, swimming and flying both. I'm soaked in her spray. Christened. I laugh and cry and lick my salty lips. People run from the cabin now, pushing past me, hooting and aiming their cameras and beer bottles at the afterimage. Thayer's head is above the crowd. He's shouting for me. I'm shouting, too, shoving back against the others towards him. "Thayer, I saw her!" I yell. "I saw!"
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