Pepe and Toro are really a little bit timid and afraid of the big world around them, but in their imagination, they are brave adventurers, ready to rush off anywhere.
So, when the two friends sit in the harbour in Estepona, watching the fishing boats come and go…
They imagine themselves heading off into the deep blue ocean to catch fish.
And when Pepe and Toro see the Search & Rescue launch powering out of the harbour…
They imagine themselves on board, dashing to rescue people from a shipwreck or a capsized sailing boat.
Well, one fine morning, when they were having their breakfast, Pepe and Toro heard some exciting news: “We’re going sailing today, and dolphin-spotting”.
“Dolphin-spotting?” Toro turned to Pepe. “Is that like putting spots on a dolphin?”
“No, silly”, said Pepe. “It means looking at them. When you see a dolphin, you’ve spotted it.”
“Oh”, said Toro thoughtfully, scratching his chin. “We can have a competition to see which one of us spots most dolphins”, he said brightly. “But…Pepe…do we have to go on a boat? A REAL sailing- boat? On the sea?”
“Ye-ess”, replied Pepe, and the two chums looked at each other and gulped.
At first, Pepe and Toro were a bit scared. They sat huddled together on the deck.
But after a while, they began to gather courage, and they climbed up onto a bench to get a better view.
“it would be great to see dolphins”, sighed Pepe. “Do you think they really swim in these waters?”
“Yes, they do. I heard the captain say he knows where they are…”, said Toro.
“Look! Over there. What’s that floating in the sea?” Pepe pointed urgently with his paw.
“Oo-errr”, said Toro. “It looks just like a person.”
The two friends went quite pale with fright. It wasn’t a person floating in the water, was it?
The captain looked at the object in the water. At first, he seemed worried, but then he said: “Don’t be scared. It’s not a person. It’s what we call a dry suit. It’s used by yachtsmen, and by fishermen, too, in bad weather. It must have fallen off a boat in a storm. Let’s pick it up. We may be able to find the suit’s owner when we get home.”
Pepe and Toro heaved a big sigh of relief when they saw it was just a dry suit, and the boat sailed on to find some dolphins.
“Hey! I saw a fin!” Toro shouted excitedly. “Was it a dolphin?”
“Very good, Toro”, said the captain. “It IS a dolphin. If it comes a bit closer, you can see it properly.”
Pepe and Toro waited eagerly to see if the dolphin would swim over to them.
Finally, one dolphin appeared, swimming right beside the boat.
“Woaaa”, cried Toro. “It’s BIG – much bigger than a pike, or even a salmon”, he said.
“MUCH bigger”, agreed Pepe.
“Hey! He’s got a friend!” Toro shouted. “Can you see that other fin? There!”
Toro bounced up and down on the bench. “I think I’m going to win the dolphin-spotting competition”, he laughed.
“Not so fast, not so fast”, chuckled Pepe. “Because… I can see…”
“…THREE dolphins in a row!”
“Excellent! Excellent!” Toro cried out, clapping his hooves together. “And, Pepe, I would otherwise say YOU are the winner, but I can see…”
“… one, two, three, four, and FIVE dolphins.”
Pepe and Toro could not believe their eyes, but just as they thought they could not see any more dolphins, and that Toro was the winner, then they BOTH spotted one of the dolphins jumping right out of the water and waving its fins at them.
And right then they decided they were BOTH winners!
Later, when Pepe and Toro were sitting together on the beach, they didn’t dream about new adventures, but they remembered a wonderful day out on the sea.
“Imagine”, said Pepe. “The two of us went sailing on a real sailing-boat, we rescued a dry-suit, and we saw lots of dolphins!”
“Yes”, sighed Toro. “Do you think we can go again tomorrow?”
And they both laughed and laughed.
Pepe & Toro 