9:27… I JUMPED into the bay to retrieve the harlequin.
The water appeared calm—until I started tracking the speed at which the current was ferrying my bird. I quickened my pace, as if I were chasing a giant brown trout headed downstream. At first, with the water barely thigh-high, I could move at a pretty good clip. But as the surface rose to my gut, my progress slowed to a trudge. Before long, I was nips-deep, tiptoeing along and watching the drake drift farther away. To cut the distance, I resorted to making these quasi-anti-gravity leaps off the bay bottom, letting the current carry me between bounds as if I were a spaceman hopping across the moon. The maneuver worked like