It was overcast the day that Lily and Jen and I went to Waiamea, one of the nicer beaches close by on the North Shore. The water is always a delicious blue, the kind they put on postcard to prove how nice a place is. Even with the clouds all pushing and shoving each other above, trying to climb the mountains to gain ground, the ocean was still so blue you'd want to name something after it.

My father had given Lily an underwater camera, and we were playing with it, trying to chase after the enormous schools of tetras you can sometimes see, and the bigger fish that skip like stones across the water to eat them. I swam out with the body board trying to find some of the fish, when I heard screams from shore and Lily and Jen calling my name.

"Dolphins!" they said.

Out further were a cluster of fins, ducking in and out of the water, over a dozen of them. I'd never seen dolphins in the wild. My heart flipped over.

They were far out, further than I'd gone before, and I wasn't sure if I could swim that far, but I tried. I had the board and the camera and a few choice images from "Jaws" in my head, and I fought the choppy waves and the tide trying to tug me back in. Most people were on the shore, but there were three or four others swimming out as far as I was. We were all feeling the same thing.

The first time the dolphins came toward me, I was petrified. I didn't expect to be; the fear came at me like a punch to the stomach, once I realized I was in deep, deep, choppy ocean, far from any other people, with nothing but a body board, and all around me–––in front of me, behind, below–––were these huge, dark shapes, these enormous fish, the largest wild animal I have ever been so close to. I ducked my head under water to try and take a picture, but I was so terrified that I forgot to mind my breathing -- I forgot to close my mouth at all -- and I gasped and breathed in sea water. My new friends must have thought it was hilarious.

The fact is (which I remembered after I forced myself to take the chill) dolphins think everything is hilarious. That's their whole life. That's why they came to Waiamea that day anyway. Holy crap, there's people over there, that's awesome! Let's go, hey, let's go play over there! Let's go play where those people are! I bet I can get there the fastest! Oh look, a fish! Bro, I'm gonna eat it! Now I'm gonna flip over! Now I'm gonna eat another fish! Hey, there's more people, this is sweet! Let's go mess with them! This'll be the best day ever! This'll be even better than yesterday, which'll be tough to beat, cause yesterday rocked the freaking house!

They were having a blast just being seen by us, just letting us try to catch up with them or get near them. They'd show off and we ate it like candy. They would jump in the air and balance on their tails, and the crowd on the beach would clap and scream. Some of the dolphins crowded about five feet in front of me and did rolls in the water while I blindly snapped pictures, hoping they'd turn out.

If I listened under the water I could hear their echolocation, a high-pitched whine and a fistful of clicks. It was creepy, not being able to see them sometimes, but knowing that they knew exactly where I was all the time, what I looked like, what I was doing. Their favorite game was to disappear and leave us wondering if they'd slipped out on us, left the bay for good, trick us into thinking they were gone, and then they'd burst back out of the water and start doing tricks again. I barely even noticed when it started raining.

The whole time I felt absolutely giddy. It's exactly as majestic as you'd imagine it to be, exactly.

The only trouble came when I realized I'd gone out too far, and had trouble swimming back. It was the hardest, fastest, and farthest I'd ever swam (swum?) in my life, and as I was jellyfishing back to shore I entertained thoughts of swimming on forever, of Lily and Jen getting tired of waiting and leaving me here. Of me living my whole life trying to feebly paw my way back to the sand, living off rain water and the foam from my body board (since I'd never be able to catch a fish). That, of course, didn't happen. I was completely sore from swimming so hard, but I loved every minute of it, and the chance I got to be so close to the dolphins and watch them play.