Inspiration of the Sea
From Waimea Bay to Waikiki, the waters of Oahu have inspired everything from main characters to settings in many of my stories. The ocean is my magical escape when I’m not writing. The salty air and a new adventure encourage the words and pages I write, even if many of the calls of the ocean are hidden in a main character’s dream, like Charlie’s in The Songs of Fate, or a woman’s desires, like Lena in Satisfying Secrets.
I call Oahu home, and it is truly a magical island with sea creatures waiting on your doorstep, or in my case in the neighborhood lagoon. Yesterday my husband and I decided to go to Shark’s Cove, a small inlet filled with coral on the north side of the island, but the area was packed so we drove on to Waimea Bay where we parked, grabbed our masks and fins, and hit the beach. On any given day you can find sea turtles and vibrant fish galore, but on this sunny afternoon we found so much more.
On the sandy beach with the sun mercilessly beating down on our backs, we didn’t waste time turning into a sun chip of a human, but ran for the water and the startling peaks of grey fins we spotted from shore. The moment I dipped my head under the surface I heard to the calls, a bewildering siren’s song of one dolphin calling to another. I poked my head out of the water and turned to my husband, “Do you hear them?”
He smiled ear to ear, “Go find them. Follow the fish. The dolphins are close.”
I didn’t need any more encouragement. We both swam with our long fins and masks away from the shore, deep into the clear blue waters of the pacific. It wasn’t long before I found the groups of small fish my husband was talking about, and then soon the songs of the dolphins became even more robust. We were close! Closer than we ever could have imagined. A pod appeared beneath us, then beside us, then before we knew it dozens of pods of dolphins swam around us, diving, circling, and jumping.
At one point there were so many, so very shockingly, incredibly near, I could reach out and touch them. Then a pod of four came swimming straight at me. I had a moment of panic… “Oh God, am I going to get gang banged by a group of dolphins?! What is the dolphin swimming protocol? Does no mean no, or are they more of a free loving animal?” Yes, I did say all of this out loud! To my credit, these large majestical creatures are smarter than humans and expert swimmers. Beside them, I looked like a tiny floating donut with a mask and flippers. But everyone on both sides maintained perfect swimming etiquette—they gave me a few feet of distance, and I gave them a healthy dose of sheer respect while caught in a swirling sea of wonder.
Instead of swimming away, like most pods do, these stayed in a tight group around the bay, putting on quite a show for over half an hour. Somewhere after the realization the dolphins weren’t going to eat me or take me for a ride (pun intended), I experienced the closest thing to magic on earth I think I might ever get.
Sharing this once in a lifetime experience with the rest of the world in an unexpected way is what I plan to do. As always, the call of the ocean and its creatures, will continue to appear in my books, especially the second book in The War of Fate Saga, The Sisters of Fate. Plan to see more water, more love of the sea, and a draw of Charlie to the power of the ocean. I can’t wait to share it with you in early 2023!
For those of you who love a new adventure, tell me what you have been up to. For those of you readers who love a good ocean story please share your favorites so I can read along too. I’m continuously on the hunt for books about sirens, women and the magic of the ocean, and the wildlife beneath the deep blue (fiction or nonfiction).
