The Blue Marble - Tales from the Other World
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The Blue Marble - Tales from the Other World
"The phin's World: A journey across world and sea," no no no, that just won't do. "The Dolphin's Adven..," no, no! There's several phins out there..
I sit in my office pointing my brown bottlenose at a computer monitor, attempting to come up with a title to a book I've been working my entire life on. "I've been doing this for 3 years now, seen all sorts of sights and heard all sorts of things, but I cannot come up with a simple book title!" I say to myself. I sigh as I rest my beak on my anthro phin hand...
My thought is broken by the sound of a bump and my monitor sliding down the desk. Blasted boat house. Sure, it seems almost obvious for a phin to own a boat house, but it's not at all what it's cracked up to be. Leaks, constant movement, and the occasional break of the tether don't quite make it worthwhile. Heck, I like to sleep outside anyway! Still, I needed a dry place for an office, yet still being near water, so a boat house was my only real option.
I reposition the monitor, and stare at the screen some more. After a bit I decide to wrap it up and reflect on what I've done today: Nothing. Nothing but stared at a screen and tried about 400 different book titles, none of which really fit. Bah. I save up the document and hit shutdown on the PC, get up from my chair, which promptly rolls over to to the side of the boat into a box of research notes. I cover up the PC with a heavy net to keep it from moving.
As I walk out, I grab the chair and quickly tie it to a wall. I look around to see if anything else is out of place in the cramped room, filled to the brim with research notes and samples I've collected. I turn out the lights and then proceed to climb some stairs to the upper deck, pushing open the door above my head that seals off the small office. Climbing out and into the night, I look up at the stars, not a single cloud in sight.
I pull my tail out of the stair well, and the door slams shut, I kneel down to lock it up, being sure it's closed so water can't leak in again. I hop from the white square block of a boat house, and down to the dock which it's bound to. I look over to my ship, The White Glider, and make sure no kids have managed to get onboard again while I was working. It's interesting that people come all the way down here just to mess around with my stuff, I guess they just think no one hangs around here at night. I'm still not sure how they get around the gates..
It's late, and I have a tour session tomorrow. So I wonder to the end of the docks, take off my clothes and undersuit, and dive into the cool ocean water. So refreshing after a long day on land. I swim between the docks to find a quiet spot where I can look up at the stars. I drift there for a while, sleeping on and off throughout the night.
--- Sun Rise ---
The brink of morning, 5 AM. Sure, 4 hours of sleep, but I'll do fine, I sleep randomly during the day anyway. Today is the last day of my dolphin tours this season. I run it to help fund my dolphin research.
Hey, the tours are quite popular! I mean, where else do you have an actual dolphin as your guide?
Anyway, I only do this for half the year; I take the hottest month of the summer off, since I can't stand the heat on land at that time, as well as the winter season since it's fairly unprofitable anyway. During those months off I travel for my research, studying dolphin behavior and dialects in different parts of the world. I also tend to take a week off during spring; after all, that's mating season for many creatures, it's always interesting to document the various courting and mating different cetacean species do.
I swim around and stretch a bit. "A long day ahead of me," I think as I make a mental list of what to do today. Eat, get boat ready, open up gates, tour, and lock things down for the close of the season.
So I head out to do the first thing on the list. Eat. Skipping past the docks, I swim out to the ocean to try and sneak up on some fish. The local pods aren't quite out yet to help with that, so I go to my favorite spot by some muck and employ some basic dolphin fishing techniques.
After scaring about a dozen small cod and herring up onto the muddy shore, I pick them out with my hands [oh yay being a anthro, I don't enjoy the taste of mud in my mouth], proceed to clean them, carefully making sure they don't flop off, and eat my fill. I free the rest from the mud and then head back to my dock.
By the time I get back it's about 5:30. I leap up as I approach the docks and grab onto a pole, pulling myself up onto the docks in one quick movement, falling to my feet. I put my undersuit back on, which helps keep my skin from drying out, and put on my shorts and a polo shirt with "Lowe Bay Dolphin Tours" stamped on it. I reach for a tube of sunscreen, absolutely essential for dolphin anthros who spend any amount of time on land, and rub that onto the rest of my exposed skin. I put it back up on the dock pole.
Ah, the boring everyday tasks of running this tour. It's a good thing it's the last day.
I check to make sure my ship is in shape, that it starts and that both the electric and gas engines work. Yes, specially modified to allow completely electrical operation with no gas needed. Of course, battery space is limited so it only works for about 8 hours of boating. Solar panels on top of the cabin help provide power to the batteries, but it takes a day to charge them up. The gas engine is still there and needed for long trips, and has been modified to also charge the batteries when idling.
Well anyway, it's about 6 now, my only employee should be arriving soon to swab the deck of the boat while I open things up for the tour. So I head to the gate to see if he's arrived yet.
--- Good Morning ---
Yep, right on time he comes down to the shore on his bike. A fox fur named James, he's a student at the local university and was quite excited to get a job working for me. He's studying to become a marine biologist, after all.
"Good morning," I say to him as he gets off his bike and locks it up on a bike-rack in the parking lot.
"Morning," he huffs, tired from his biking trip down to the shore. We are several miles from town.
I like to be away from the public, so I built the tour docks a few miles out away from the lights and sounds. It's very peaceful out here, as you can imagine.
"Well it's the last day of the season, how you feeling?" I ask him.
"Good I guess," he says, walking through the gate, me turning to walk alongside, "I'm having some trouble studying for my calc final, perhaps you could help me with that tonight?"
"I suppose, but I've never taken the subject though," I explain.
"Really? Well you seem to know enough about it," he says, surprised.
"Yeah, I studied some parts of it I suppose, by accident; writing analyzing programs helped me realize that I should have paid more attention in math classes," I say, chuckling.
"Oh, well alright," he says, still somewhat surprised. He grabs a bucket and mop from behind our ticket booth on the docks, I watch him fluff his tail around a bit like he always does, waiting for him to continue to the ship.
"Though you know, I am planning a date tonight, so the study session will need to be early in the afternoon," I say, grinning thinking about my date.
"Really? I didn't realize you date..," he stops himself, "OH!" he realizes, "Missi, right."
"Yep, of course." I say, thinking about her in the back of my mind.
"Don't you two see each other every day?" he asks.
"Yes, but we've been needing some time alone to talk," I explain, hiding my true intentions. Land furs just don't understand, you see.
"Hm," he says. He reaches for the hose faucet on the dock and turns it on, pulling the hose with him as he walks onto the ship.
A brief pause later, I decide to stop watching him work and do my own work. "Well, you get the ship clean, I'll be opening up the ticket booth," I say, walking away as he sprays down the deck with water and begins to mop.
I walk down to the ticket booth and unlock the door, scare off a few spiders that manage to get in, and open the register and ticket printer. Everything is in order. Now we get to wait till 9 AM for when people arrive for the 10 AM tour.
And yet it's only now 6:30. So with time to spare I go ahead and count the change to make sure we have enough for the day. I go grab my bullhorn from the booth and then head back to my boat house to find a clean polo and shorts, since what I'm wearing from last night are covered with salt and grime. Sure I don't mind it, but I know my customers prefer a clean looking phin.
While I'm there, I pull out some fresh plastic paper and pens. Regular paper just doesn't work too well in water ya know. I grab my notes on where I'll be travelling to this month, and lay them out on my desk, and go over them one more time. I'll be visiting the Pacific Ocean around South America to examine the languages of the duskies there, see if there's any vocal link carried from Pacific White-sided Dolphins, their distant northern relatives.
I stare and think over my plans for several moments, and probably 'accidentally' catch a few Zs, and before I know it, it's going on 9 AM and I still haven't changed my shirt. I snap back into focus and put a strap over the papers to keep them from moving off in the rocking of the boat house and prepare to get ready.
After a quick shirt change, I grab my bullhorn and head to my ship. James managed to do quite a nice job on the ship deck: spotless. I compliment him as he wanders off to the ticket booths as the first customers come wandering in to purchase tickets.
I greet them as they board the ship, and to pass the time I tell them who I am and some of my stories.
--- The Tour ---
"Good morning and welcome to Lowe Bay Dolphin Tours," my bullhorn screeches over the crowd of 50 or so furs on board. "My name is Mick, and I'll be your captain, and guide today," I say, and proceed to go over basic safety tips and what to expect, as well as the old 'We may not actually see dolphins today' thing, which of course will never be the case.
After that, I signal to James to undock the boat. He does so and skillfully jumps on board after unroping. I wonder down to the cabin, hearing the usual comments about me, "Hey he's really a dolphin", "Oh we've just seen a dolphin, we can go now", "So there's a dolphin giving a tour of himself?"... among other things. I start up the electric engine and guide us out to the bay.
After 15 minutes of travelling, I get to the spot where the local pod comes about daily. You could say it's "my" pod, since technically I've been accepted in it, but I rarely call it that since I don't usually travel with it, only fish once a day and visit with it.
I shut down the engines and announce to the guests that we should be seeing dolphins shortly, and right on time the pod comes by, breaching, jumping, and so on for the guests on the ship. Lots of pictures are taken, lots of giggles and laughs and awes, it always makes the job worth it.
I keep a look out myself, and see her. I announce "On the right side of the ship, you'll see my mate Missi out with the pod. Everyone say 'Hi Missi'!" And right about that time, a female anthro phin jumps out and waves to everyone on the ship. The guests say 'Hi Missi' and wave back, then continue watching the phins.
She swims to the back of the ship, where I skip back to meet with her, "Hello there," I say in a bottlenose dialect.
"Hello. A fairly large gathering you have here for an end of season, our plans still on for tonight?" she says back in the same dialect.
"Of course," I say, and wink. She nods and darts back off with the pod. A few guests of course are staring surprised, a few check their cameras to see if they got a good shot of her, and of course everyone else is asking me about her.
After 10 minutes, the pod leaves and I distract myself from the crowd. I turn The White Glider around, back to the docks.
-- Math Homework --
"So we've made a total of $1,850 today," James says with a somewhat full mouth, "Not bad at all I think." He takes another bite out of his sandwich.
"Yep, I suppose I should lower the ticket price from $35 dollars, sure people are willing to pay for it but it's kind of more than I need," I randomly blather, staring out toward the ocean, thinking of her..
"What do you mean?" he asks, giving a confused face, and swallowing his last bite. "People pay it, and you get more than enough customers... it just means you can do more research!" he says, then quickly adds in, "Or even hire a research partner.."
"Ah, well," I say, grinning at that prospect. "We'll have to see about THAT. You know I spend most of my research time under the water," I mention.
"Well yes, I know you like to keep with your own kind and all that during research, but I mean I could help with documenting and all, and even look after the ship during the day," he suggests.
"We'll see," I say. "So after credit card fees, and taxes, what do we have for a total profit of the day," I ask, giving him a quick math quiz.
He ponders, finishing his lunch, "About $1,100 I think."
"That's good. You've worked hard this last week, go ahead and take that amount as your paycheck and have a good month off," I say, still staring out toward the ocean.
"Really? Well thanks," he says slowly, pondering over the cash in his hands before putting it down. "But," he continues, "I'd gladly give it back if I could come with you this month."
I look over at him, "Really now, you're that serious?" I say, somewhat surprised, but not entirely..
"Of course!" he yelps, "I mean, I'd love to come," he explains.
I ponder over it for a moment. "Well, I suppose I could use some help," he stares at me, hopeful. "Well, ok sure," and before I finish, he runs up and hugs me.
"Oh thank you! Thank you thank you tha," I push him off of me, "Er, thank you," he says quickly.
"Right," I smile, "Just don't hug me like that again."
"Sorry," he says, and smiles.
"And you can keep the cash," I say. I pause for a moment and say randomly, "Also, I never quite realized how soft you foxes are," thinking back to the hug.
He laughs, "Heh, thanks!", he says, "And really, thank you. I've dreamed about going out on the ocean for years, I'm... I'm really excited," he explains.
"Alright alright alright," I say, "Calm down now. We need to clean up and lock up for the day. You need to also pass that calc exam before we can go," I mention.
"Oh, er, right. Well, I guess we can start," he says.
After cleaning up, we sit down along the docks quizzing each other. After the day is over, he's ready for that exam, and takes his pay and rides his bike on home, excited as ever. I on the other hand am excited for my own reasons.
--- Evening ---
It's late noon. I'm in my office. Finally come up with a title, "The Blue Marble: Tales from the Other World". I take off my shirt and shorts and put them in my washer. I lock up my office and the docks.
I board my ship, make sure it's free of debris from earlier, and check the breeze. A good day for sailing. I take The White Glider out, and direct her toward a Distant Shore. My mate awaits in those Distant Waters.
The Blue Marble: Tales from the Other World [1]
By micksam7
Copyright 2008 micksam7
All Rights Reserved