Finlly I got on the show! Thanks for having me. This happened back in August of 1968, and I remember it like it was yesterday. Some things you just don't forget, you know? I'd been taking my family on a yachting trip around the Gulf Islands. Beautiful area, if you've never been. My wife and the kids loved these trips, we'd do them every summer. That particular evening, we'd anchored for the night at Pirate's Cove, just off De Courcy Island. The name always got the kids excited, made them think there was treasure or something. Really it's just a quiet little anchorage, peaceful, good shelter from the wind. The sun had gone down maybe an hour before. We'd finished dinner, the kids were settling in. My wife was cleaning up below deck. I was topside, just enjoying the evening, listening to the water lap against the hull.
Then I heard this splashing. Not like a fish jumping, more deliberate. Rhythmic, almost. Coming from the starboard side of the yacht, maybe ten feet off. I walked over to take a look, expecting to see a seal or maybe an otter. The water was calm, and there was still enough light from the sunset to see pretty clearly. What I saw made me freeze right where I stood. There was this creature in the water, swimming alongside the boat. Small thing, maybe sixteen inches long, but like nothing I'd ever seen in thirty years of sailing these waters. It had this elongated snout, pointed, almost like a crocodile but not quite. The body was covered in these armored plates, kind of overlapping, reminded me of an armadillo if that makes sense. And it had this yellow fuzz all over it, downy stuff, looked almost like the down on a baby bird. The head, it was looking right up at me. Dark eyes, intelligent-looking. The forward flippers were moving in this odd paddling motion, keeping it at the surface. And the tail, that's what really got me. It was bilobate, split into two lobes, shaped kind of like seal flippers but fused together at the base.
I called down to my wife. Told her to bring the kids up, they had to see this. By the time they got topside, the thing was still there, circling the yacht, making those splashing sounds. My oldest boy, he was maybe twelve at the time, he goes, 'Dad, what is that?' And I had to tell him I didn't know. I'd been around boats my whole life, fished these waters, knew every seal and sea lion and otter you could name. This wasn't any of those things. We watched it for a few minutes, all of us just standing there. The creature didn't seem afraid of us at all. Just kept swimming around, almost like it was curious about the boat. plates on marine animals are fascinating - Tom' That's when I got the idea. I told my wife to get the bucket, the big metal one we used for bailing. And I lowered the dinghy into the water.
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