Sam, the baby sub, plays with the dolphins.
Illustration © 2023 Susan Fleming
Sam, the baby sub., has been told to stay near the harbour, but Sam is naughty. He thinks it will be fun to explore further out to sea. Off he goes without telling the other baby subs: Eddie, Freddie, Maisie and Daisie.
He meets a group of dolphins, called a “pod” of dolphins. They say they are going to ride on the bow wave at the front of a ship and ask Sam to go with them.
When a big ship is going fast it pushes water in front of its bow, and the dolphins enjoy swimming and jumping in this bow wave. Sam joins in but cannot swim as fast as the dolphins. The ship hits his propeller and damages it. Sam cannot swim anymore and sinks to the bottom of the sea.
The dolphins try to help Sam. They push him with their noses and waft him with their tails, but Sam cannot move without his propeller.
Just then a trawler comes along with its net down, trying to catch fish. The dolphins know all about these nets and swim away quickly. Sam is caught in the net and taken aboard the trawler.
“What have we here?” says one of the trawler men. “Is it a piece of old metal?”
The skipper recognises Sam and says, “It is one of those baby subs. Look! He has a damaged propeller. We had better repair him.”
So they get hammers and straighten Sam’s propeller and put grease on it to make it work smoothly. They put Sam back in the water and now he can swim as good as new. Sam swims round the boat and blows bubbles to say thank you to the trawler men.
Then the dolphins come to show Sam the way back to the harbour, because he did not know which way to go. He was all lost at sea.
Safely back in the harbour Eddie, Freddie, Maisie and Daisie are all glad to see Sam back safely. Sam says he will never be naughty again, but Sam is not sure if he means it, because Sam cannot help being just a little bit naughty.