Page 1 of Mail Order Splash

Chapter One

KLEINE

Isat on the front of the boat with my legs tucked up under my oversized sweatshirt, delighting in the breeze blowing across my face. The sun had already shown itself hours before, yet it still held a mystical magic of each new day and it was the exact kind of morning that was the reason I enjoyed being out on the water. Even better was the view of my best friend, Josh, manning the wheel with the wind tossing his massive curls while he sang along to Dave Matthews, counting on Josh to be there while I was on the lookout was something I knew I could always count on. Around noon we coasted for a good twenty minutes while we had the lunch I’d packed then started off once more in a different direction. We were just about to turn back into shore when we got the distress call over the radio.

“Kleine, are you out on the water? Over.” My friend Tony with the Coast Guard voice rang out.

“This is Josh. We’re out here, Tony. What’s up? Over.”

“We’ve got a dolphin cut and tangled. Not sure how long, but it doesn’t look good. Over.”

“We’re on our way. Over.”

Once Tony gave us the coordinates, we sped off in that direction. The quiet peaceful morning was gone, replaced with anxiousness for the dolphin. Rescuing sea life was what I did. It was what all of my family had done. I’d been out on the very same waters since I’d been about seven years old. I’d watched my granddad, my dad, and even my uncle on occasion rescue anything in distress. Granddad opened the rescue facility when he was barely in his twenties and it had passed all the way down to me. Years later, joined with my dad, they turned it into a learning place for students where they could be more informed about respecting the ocean and what lives within it. Eventually it became more touristy than he had wanted but it paid for supplies to continue rescuing, so he accepted it.

“We almost had a good morning without distress.” I zipped into my wetsuit, preparing to have to go in the water. “There they are.”

“Glad you were out here, Kleine.” Tony pointed to the situation. “We got a boat in distress call and have to go. I stayed ‘til you got here.”

“Thanks, Tony,” I called out from my boat. “We can take it from here.”

“Radio me if you need us to come back.” He saluted and sped off.

I could swim like I was one of them. My granddad had made sure of it and the deep waters as far out as we were at that time never scared me. I had a healthy respect for what lay beneath, including what lurked below the surface, but it felt like a second home to me.

“Hold tight while I assess the situation.” I called out to Josh then fell back into the water.

I surfaced long enough to fill Josh in on what was needed. “It looks bad. I’m not sure we can cut her loose fast enough.”

“I’ll anchor and help.” Josh went to work without another word as I slipped back under the water.

Barely managing to cut several of the cords of the netting wrapped around the dolphin, I surfaced, bringing her snout with me. I wasn’t able to keep her at the surface for very long, but it had been long enough to tell Josh to get the floaters ready, and that was when I saw, or rather, heard jet skis coming at us pretty quick.

“Who are these people? Can’t they see what’s happening here?” I yelled up to Josh. “If they keep coming, they could make this harder. Blow the horn.”

Josh, my ever-present assistant and boat captain when I needed one, blew the boat horn repeatedly, but the people on the jet skis kept coming. While Josh worked on getting their attention, I quickly finished setting up the floating perimeter he had been working on to keep anyone out during the rescue. It was a precaution I’d always taken, though I never really expected to come across anyone that far out. However, there they were.

“I’m going back under. I need to get her to surface, even briefly.” I went under again then back up seconds later. “You have to get down here now.”

“What about them?” Josh grabbed a knife, preparing to dive in. “They aren’t stopping.”

“What kind of maniacs are on jet skis in the middle of the ocean? I mean, where did they come from?”

“I reckon they came from that yacht in the distance.” He pointed. “I saw it through the binoculars. There appears to be a party of some sort going on and at least three jet skis coming our way.”

“Maybe you should keep blowing the horns. This dolphin is in bad enough shape. I don’t need her or us hit by these fools. Seriously, don’t they know the rules of the open ocean?”

“From the looks of that yacht, I don’t think they know or care.” He went back to the main area of the boat. “You better not go down there yet, they could hit you. I’m going to set the auto alarm to keep going off.”

We waited a few seconds watching the jet skis dashing side-to-side and jumping waves. With us being a good mile from the coast, I hadn’t been expecting that kind of interruption- a few sharks, maybe, but not human interference.

I gotta get this dolphin untangled. She’s only been up once or twice in the last twenty minutes and drowning is a strong possibility.

“I have to get down there, she’s going to drown.” I checked my watch. “It’s been five minutes. She only has, at most, ten more, but that’s pushing her limits.”

“You’re the boss. You want me down there helping or up here trying to slow the humans down?”

“Set the secondary auto alarm we added, it’s pretty loud. Then come down with me.”

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