Stupid Tourist

B and I were sitting on the front porch one day last week. Just enjoying the breeze that is finally coming in off the ocean again. Minding our own business, happy to be alive and in the position we are in. While scanning the ocean, which I always do, looking for fins but never seeing any, I spotted something very large and white drifting along, about 100 yards out. Not knowing what it was, and fearing (hoping??) a body, I ran for the binoculars.
What I saw drifting leisurely along with the current was a dead dolphin. A very large dead dolphin. I scanned the area around it, looking for a fin. I had just a seen a program on Discovery (gotta love that channel!) about how sharks track food. It seems they can follow the scent of something dead in the water from up to twenty miles away! Stood to reason that something this large in the water would attract something. But, alas, I saw no fins. I was really looking forward to watching a feeding frenzy from the safety of my porch! (but not the kind I witness when I visit my relatives and my mother puts out her potato salad!) What I did see though totally appalled me.
Shortly before we spotted the dolphin, a couple of tourists had pulled their golf cart over in front of our beach and were snorkeling out in front of us. The guy evidently saw the carcass floating and went to investigate. Foolish, foolish man. He was evidently not a watcher of Discovery! B and I watched in disbelief as he swam and snorkeled his way the 100 yards or so out to it. And then, unbelievably, he grabbed it by the tail and hauled it in to land! Stupid, stupid, stupid! That dolphin was just drifting along, well on its’ way to going out to sea where it could take its’ natural place in the food chain, sustaining life for whatever cared to dine on it. But no, this stupid tourist just had to interfere with Mother Nature. One has only to look at Joan Rivers to see what happens when you interfere with Mother Nature!
So he pulls this twelve foot dead creature up to shore and he and his wife/girlfriend/ugly stepsister take a good look at it. Meantime, cars and motor scooters, attracted by the scent of death, are stopping everywhere on the road and running down to the beach to get a good look at this thing. I just looked through the binoculars. It looked like it had been speared or maybe hit by a propeller just in front of the tail. It had a big hole there with its’ innards hanging out. Its’ tongue was also hanging out, dripping blood into the water. Even more surprising that sharks had not found it. I secretly was wishing that when the tourist got to it and grabbed it, he would have pissed off the sharks circling under it and had him for lunch too!
So Mr. Tourist, his curiosity evidently satiated, got back in the golf cart and drove away. Completely oblivious to the chaos they had left behind. What did they think was going to happen to this carcass? Who did they think would take care of it? I was seething and wanted to go chase them and run them off the cliff. B grabbed the car keys and reason prevailed.
Meantime, even more local people and tourists had stopped and the road was clogged with no traffic being able to get by. Then the local police arrive, followed shortly by the military. They all examined it for awhile and left. Eventually the hubbub subsided and the crowds left. “What the *^%$#!”, I wondered. Are they just going to leave it there to rot? Sure looked like it.
The next morning I heard a big truck outside and went to the front porch. I was both happy and PO’d to see a group of military guys go down to the beach with shovels. They spent the next three hours in the blazing sun digging a massive hole on my beach to bury the thing! My anger at this stupid tourist returned. I’m sure he had no idea of the work he had caused for everybody. He should have just left the thing alone! The four guys who had burial detail finished the hole but could not drag the beast to it. They had to radio for a pickup to come to the beach and tie onto it and pull it into the hole. That done, they covered it with sand and went back to whatever other duties the military does.
That night we got a tremendous storm. Next morning I was looking off my porch. And I finally saw a fin! Except it was sticking out of the sand! Seems that the hole they dug was not quite deep enough and the carcass was half uncovered by the storm last night. And trust me, they are not going to return and rebury the thing! I wish they had just brought a boat around and hauled the thing way back out to sea. That was last week. I used to look forward to the cooling breeze coming in from the ocean. Right now, I am not too excited about it. Until the thing is completely decomposed, we are being treated to the smell of dead, rotting decaying flesh wafting into our lives. Stupid tourists.