Adventure Island
So we’re at the beach for the week this week, and I’m plugged in to veeeery slow dial-up here at Topsail Island. We’re staying at a friend’s vacation house (fabulous to have friends with nice things 
), and they have all kinds of fun toys that they let us borrow. So today Matthew and I took the ocean kayaks out of the canal (where the house is situated) and into the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway! And while I had a moment of freaked-out-ness right before I got into the boat (I mean, it’s a tiny little boat, and even though you don’t get zipped into these ones, they’re still tippy and low-riding), it was one of the coolest things I’ve done in a long while. We probably rowed maybe 1-1.5 miles total, up the inside of the island and then back. Along the way we saw two beautiful herons (I think Great Blues), both of which stuck around long enough for us to get pretty close before flying away (very gracefully). And then, as we were getting close to the point where we’d decided to turn around, I saw what I at first thought were birds sitting on the water maybe a hundred feet ahead of me. After staring at the waves for a couple seconds, I realized they were fins!!! Dolphin fins!!!!! There were at least 2, maybe 3 dolphins swimming lazily up ahead of us, periodically coming up to the surface in that arch that lets you see their fin and silvery back. It was soooo awesome! I really wished then that I’d brought my camera, but I just wasn’t sure enough that I wouldn’t tip the first time out. We’re planning on going back out if the weather cooperates later this week (there’s some hurricane aftermath coming through that’s supposed to bring us some rain tomorrow and Thursday).