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Jim Melvin's avatar

Thanks Daniel!!! We never had whales, but I imagine our water is a bit warmer when it comes to a swim. 😀 My wife visited Scotland when she was younger and is obsessed with going back.

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Alisa Kennedy Jones's avatar

What an amazing recollection! I had no idea manta rays grew that large or lived that long.

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Jim Melvin's avatar

Thank you! I wish there had been cellphones back then. I would post the video now. It was stupendously huge. Like the size of a whale.

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Steve Henneberry's avatar

Wow. The horseshoe crab drew me in, as I grew up on a brackish bay in New Hampshire, and we used to see them all the time when we explored the coastline. However, I stuck around and loved the rest of the story. My father moved down to Bradenton over 30 years ago to retire and passed away just a few years back, so I consider Bradenton my third hometown. My first hometown is Stratham, NH, where I explored the Great Bay, dug for old glass bottles and other treasures in the woods, and flattened coins on the train tracks. My second hometown is Hamada, in Shimane, Japan. This is where both my children were born and where I currently work. All are close to a body of water, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I look forward to reading the rest of this series.

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Daniel O’Donnell's avatar

Absolutely wonderful stuff this week, Jim. As someone who grew up on the water, this made me quite emotional recalling my own childhood out on boats watching dolphins and the odd whale in the waters around Scotland

Thanks very much for writing these 👍🏼

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Paolo Peralta's avatar

This is amazing ❤️

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Jim Melvin's avatar

Thank you!

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Jim Melvin's avatar

This is an awesome comment, Steve! Thank you for sharing. It sounds like your life has been a great adventure!

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Jim Melvin's avatar

Hi Joshua! Thank you! And yes, it is indeed the subtext. I do have one segment that involves a near-death experience, but if I write that one, I'll need to post trigger warnings.

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Joshua Shapiro's avatar

A very special, memorable, vividly described recollection. Makes the sights of my boyhood seem lame by comparison (garter snakes and catfish). It is interesting to contemplate how, given the unsupervised, non-safety conscious times, any adventurous kid survived into adulthood. This seems to be the sly subtext here, along with the premise that the ride was worth the risk. Kudos!

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Daniel O’Donnell's avatar

Absolutely wonderful stuff this week, Jim. As someone who grew up on the water, this made me quite emotional recalling my own childhood out on boats watching dolphins and the odd whale in the waters around Scotland

Thanks very much for writing these 👍🏼

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