A ripple in the water

by Laura Batt (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Australia

It was dawn. My steps were light and precise up the narrow, oak stairs of the Ragamuffin sailboat as I made my way up from under the deck. The soft light of the morning created a purple hue that reflected off the silent water and the sound of early-rising birds echoed through the boundless space before me. “Paradise”, I whispered to myself, unable to comprehend the beauty of the breaking day. My hand glided over the rich wood of the rails as I made my way forward to the bow of the boat. For miles and miles there was water; it was all I could see other than the hazy banks that sheltered the undisturbed animals of Australia’s waters. The Whitsundays were like nothing I had ever seen before. It was like I had taken my final breath and ended up in a heaven too pure for the trivial words we speak in everyday life. Like my time on earth up to this point meant nothing, because the beauty that I was finally seeing reduced my life down to a handful of grey, fleeting moments. Forgettable. But not this. This memory would last forever. The mangroves crept into the water like fingers of wise story-tellers, reaching out to me to tell me their secrets. I could feel the heartbeat of the earth under my feet and yet the world felt like it had come to a perfect standstill. There was nothing and everything all at the same time. A ripple: a small, subtle ripple of the water caught my eye and I noticed Welcome Sparrows dipping in and out of the shallows, sipping the ocean water like a morning mug of coffee. Their slick wings kissed the surface, sending out a message that the day had begun. I took a deep breath as I reached the nose of the cutter. My body filled with the unadulterated air of the Southern Hemisphere, rushing to my fingertips making me grip the railings tighter. I looked to where the lilac sky met the endless ocean and thought about the first person to discover this sight. They must have thought they’d finally reached utopia, I thought to myself. To my wonder, a fin breached the stillness of the water directly in front of where I stood. A dolphin’s smooth dorsal floated up through the tranquillity, modestly revealing the arch of its back before disappearing back into the blue. If I blinked, I would have missed it, and I quietly pleaded for it to appear again. A second fin broke through the surface, and then a third, looping around each other like a game of cat’s cradle. They danced with each other, pirouetting in perfect synchronicity as I stood in awe of their ticketless show. I clutched my hands to my mouth, terrified that the moment would be taken away from me with as little as an exhale. They dipped under the water one last time and I stood in total silence, in awe of the memory that was now firmly embedded in my mind. I thought that my life had been full: a wash of colours, sounds and smells that pieced together to make me, me. But in that exact moment, I knew I had barely even begun.