Air Date: Week of August 2, 2002

Author Sy Montgomery reads an excerpt from her book, "Journey of the Pink Dolphins: An Amazon Quest." The book is being featured on our website, Living on Earth Today.

Transcript

CURWOOD: Starting Monday, August 5th, our web page, Living on Earth Today, is featuring author Sy Montgomery reading daily installments of her book, Journey of the Pink Dolphins: An Amazon Quest. The New York Times Book Review called Sy Montgomery "equal parts poet and scientist," and declared the book "a captivating account."

On her journey, Sy searches the Amazon for the elusive Pink River Dolphin, animals that have become legend to the local river people who both fear and revere them. In this excerpt, Sy writes of what it’s like to swim with these mythic creatures.

[MUSIC]

MONTGOMERY: In the water, I was a creature transformed, no longer terrestrial, no longer bipedal. I shed the world of earth and air. I left behind the way I breathe, the way I move, the very weight of my body. Each immersion offered a baptism, a new birth.

Inside the water, I swam in the womb of mystery where pink dolphins looked into my face, where every element, including my own future was utterly out of my control, and where the most impossible of possibilities come true. As I emerged from the water, my body suddenly felt leaden, spent.

CURWOOD: To hear more about the pink dolphins of the Amazon, go to our website, loe.org, anytime throughout the month of August, and hear Sy read a new installment each day. That’s the Living on Earth Today website at www.loe.org. You can also see pictures of the pink dolphins and Sy’s expedition in the Amazon. You’re listening to NPR’s Living on Earth.