Dingle Bay

And he would take functionally, what was it, chronically depressed people out to swim with the dolphin.

He would usually go to Ireland and swim with Fungi over there in Dingle Bay.

And they would come out functional after one swim.

And there's many programs where they take people, a lot of war veterans suffering from PTSD to swim with dolphins, and it really helps calm them down.

It's the kind of small-town infrastructure drama you only notice when you're living somewhere, not just visiting.

I wander down to the harbor again in the late afternoon and sat on a bench near the pier, watching the light change over Dingle Bay.

The town was busy but not frantic, the last big flush of summer visitors, I suspect, before September takes over.

I thought about the cost of living here, the way rents for a short-term furnished flat run about 1300 euro a month, and how that compares to the guest house I'm in, which is around 150 a night with breakfast.

The rain arrived with my coffee this morning, a soft, persistent drizzle off Dingle Bay that had the harbor looking more like a watercolor than a working port.

I was standing at the window of my room with a mug of tea from the B&B, watching the light shift on the masts, and I had one of those moments where you wonder if you should just scrap the plan and find a warm corner with a book.

but I'd promised myself a sea kayak this week, and the forecast said the drizzle would clear by noon, so I pulled on my rain gear and headed for the marina.

Number one-six-two lifts to a long-drawn wail of the breeze in the fore-flange of the rudder, and we make Valencia, white-green-white, at a safe seven thousand feet, dipping our beam to an incoming Washington packet.

There is no cloud on the Atlantic, and faint streaks of cream round Dingle Bay show where the driven seas hammer the coast.

A big Saturn liner, Société Anonyme des Transports Aériens, is diving and lifting half a mile below us in search of some break in the solid west wind.

Lower still lies a disabled Dane.

Number 162 lifts to a long-drawn wail of the breeze in the fore flange of the rudder, and we make Valencia, white-green-white, at a safe seven thousand feet, dipping our beam to an incoming Washington packet.

There is no cloud on the Atlantic, and faint streaks of cream round Dingle Bay show where the driven seas hammer the coast.

A big sat-a-liner, Société Anonyme des Transports Aériens, is diving and lifting half a mile below us, in search of some break in the solid west wind.

Lower still lies a disabled Dane.