An Antipodean Mirror of the Tiger's Wife

From the magnificent The Tiger's Wife, there is one paragraph that I will reprint on A WineDark Sea because it reminds me of two characters I know so well ...

"Then Barba put his crates in the boat and I helped him push it out, even though he waved me off. 
Bis was already in the boat, wagging his tail so hard his hips and whole rear end were swinging manically from left to right. Then Barba Ivan climbed into the boat and , eighty years old if he was a day, rowed himself out to the motorboat he kept moored to the breakwater, switched vessels, lifted Bis out of the skiff and into the motorboat, and then, with the dog standing on the wet prow like a masthead, the two of them set off down the coast, cutting the still morning water. Every hundred yards or so, Bis would launch backward out of the boat, his jowls flapping into an insane grin of canine pleasure and disappear under the waves; Barba Ivan would kill the motor and drift until the dog caught up, or turn the boat around and go back for him."

Seadogs will slide off the bow of every skiff, into every sea in the world, to be hauled up by familiar hands, grabbing for their collar.

T'ea Obreht 

The Tiger's Wife

Orion Publishing Group, Great Britain, 2011, p. 125.