From the top of nearby hill we see first one fin then another then several—seven—rising up then going under, peeling off from the southern edge of the sandbar below, moving diagonally downriver into deeper water. We watch them rise, invdividually, collectively, for a while. Then we scamper slowly, unrushed, down the limestone edge of the hill, moving through balga and tea tree, until we get to the road below, following it downhill to the river’s edge, flanking the water police, and moving slowly along the jetties, keeping one eye on the surface of the river. We walk all the way to the final jetty by the hotel, and still see no sign of them. We walk right out to the end of the boats, looking upriver and down, the wind here choppy and blown, and still no sign of them. I think I see a moving dolphin-sized bubble blown under water at one point, but nothing emerges. We walk back the way we came, resigned to what we’d seen already today. 

And then, as we get beyond the hotel to the apartments upriver, we see a rising in the calmer waters closer to shore. And then another. But, for the first time I think I’ve ever seen, the rising is not followed by a going under. The dolphins have come up and are floating. They sit above the the water, one or two even raise their heads up higher and look around. What are they looking at or for? Humans? Here in the calmer water of the jetties are dolphins on the surface water, floating, resting, looking around. Here are creatures of the depths that rise, coming up to the surface, going that far, then looking even higher.