Took My Breath Away

I know I haven't set foot on this terrain in awhile.  But today, from a newsletter I receive on honing my writing skill I was asked to write about something that took my breath away.  I thought I would share it with you.  Hope you enjoy.

Like bullets they shot through the waves, their only purpose...to have fun. Water churned beneath the hulls of the boat, tickling the creatures' undersides. They responded with a dance that crisscrossed the wakes as their sleek torso's sliced through the ocean in rhythm with the wind. After hours enduring the hard surface of the catamaran, hiding in the shadows of the main sail—the only protection from the long day's cruelty upon my skin—the gods had rewarded me. The pain no longer mattered. Nothing mattered. They had arrived. Those mythical mermaids who generously begged to share their playground with us mere mortals. When the leader floated sideways below me, his eye staring up in gleeful wonder as if to say, "Please play with me," silent tears touched my cheeks. The tears flowed for the years of imagining this moment, for the days of searching the open seas, hoping and praying for a sighting that did not come, for the realization that somewhere deep in my soul I was connected to these magnificent prehistoric beings. Long and sleek, glistening in the afternoon sun like tandem sails flapping above the crystal waters of their home, the dolphins were upon us. And in the innocence of that moment they took my breath away.