Bountiful ocean

Hundreds of shapes sweeping and diving. Converging on a spot far down the beach. Walking barefoot over delicious grains of rough sand massaging my toes then washed clean over and over again in ritual with each wave reaching up to me. Following the birds. Big pterodactyl like birds patrolling the sea breezes. Frigate birds, pirates, like their namesakes. Plundering the latest plunder from another pirate coming ashore.

I watch the fishing boat rocking in the surf. In the midst of the fray taking in the spectacle of being wholly surrounded by hundreds of frigates and pelicans diving and weaving. A sky of flitting shapes, contrasting black against the overcast dawn like giant bats, but birds come down like a Hitchcock film. They are after mullet, mackerel, corvina and all the other victims of this trawl line. Clearcutting the life from top to bottom of the water column.

The fishermen are squat legged and swarthy men of the sea. Unloading bucket after bucket wading through the waves unaffected by the commotion all around them. Bold frigates diving and stealing fish right from their buckets, but there is enough to go around. For now. One flies off with his steal only to be robbed by another. A fish dropping in the commotion only to be dramatically swallowed up in the leathery pouch of a pelicans gullet. Meanwhile the ruckus continues and the boat finally grows empty and buoyant as the truck tires sink deeper in the sand, full belly.

Only a few bird smears of white on my shirt exploring the tide line North to Machallila...