Whale Watches
Reading Thorn’s whale-watching entry reminded me of my own experience. (And while I’m thinking about it, is everyone aware that they’ve discovered a new species of baleen whale off the coast of Japan?)
When I was thirteen, my parents took us to Cape Cod to go whale-watching. The ship left from Provincetown, which was my very first experience with gay people. The town is a bit of a haven for the alternative crowd. Nowdays I wouldn’t think twice about it, but at 13 years old, having lived in West Virginia of all places (we don’t even have black people, let alone out-of-the-closet gay people), I didn’t know what to think. But I digress.
We went in search of humpbacks, and were disappointed to not find any. We did encounter two Sei Whales of giant proportions, a Minke Whale, and a mother and baby Northern Wright Whale, which was the highlight of the trip. If you read Thorn’s entry you’ll realize that the Northern Wright Whale is one of the most endangered—if not the most endangered—species on the planet. There’s debate about whether or not the tiny remaining population has enough genetic diversity to survive. But they too came very close to the boat, and the baby, who was only a few months old, rolled onto its side and looked up at the boat a number of times. The mother didn’t seem bothered by our presence; I suppose many whales in the Cape Cod region are used to boatloads of humans staring at them. The baby was an amazing thing. Here was a new member of a dying species. Whenever I see that video I wonder if the baby whale made it to adulthood, and where it is now, and if it had a baby of its own. Humans are a brutal species. It infuriates me that the Scandinavians and the Japanese continue to whale, and refuse to abide by the international moratorium adopted by the UN. I spent a lot of time studying this in my International Environmental Law class in college. It’s heartbreaking. Part of me knows that these people rely on whaling for their livelihood, but look at the Inuit people and their whaling practices. NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT. SUSTAINABILITY. It can be done. Greed sickens me. Whaling is not the only option.
Five years later, when I was 18, I was in the Galapagos Islands on a sea lion dive. We’d been down for half an hour, perhaps, hovering around 55 feet. A white tip shark followed our group, slowly, very curious about what we were but also very reserved. It stayed behind us and if we approached it would back off. Clearly we had nothing to fear and I was not the least bit nervous. It was a beautiful animal and we saw a number of sharks on that trip, all behaving in the same quiet, shy manner. I don’t blame the poor shark; as we approached the sea lion play area we realized that even the larger sharks are playthings for sea lions. This fellow scurried off when a pair of juveniles approached him and nipped at his pectoral fins. It was an amazing dive. The sea lions were all around us, blowing bubbles and nipping at our flippers and swirling and looping about our group, in and out between divers. The only terrifying moment was when the bull sea lion, the beachmaster, came barreling through. We heard him barking loudly underwater, and he was easily the size of a Honda Civic, but longer. If there were any creatures to be afraid of in the Galapagos, it was the bulls. He weighed a ton and got way too close for comfort. We ascended from our dive when we’d gotten out of his territory.
At the surface, the sea lions were leaping and doing their usual sea lion frolicking thing. As we climbed into the panga (Ecuadorian for “dinghy”), the multitude suddenly began to make a mad dash for the rocks, and all leapt fiercely onto shore. We wondered what was afoot. A great white, perhaps? Twenty yards to the rear, a dorsal fin rose out of the water. Our bio teacher shouted, “Pilot Whales!”. Interesting, but not spectacular. Nothing against pilot whales, of course. I’d seen them before, though. But then a 6 foot, arrow-straight, black dorsal fin rose smoothly out of the water, knifing through the chop, and we knew what it really was: a pod of orcas. (The sea lions knew this too.) They must have been curious, because they swam directly for our panga. The group consisted of three females, a giant male, and an infant. The water in the Galapagos is clear and cold, and we could see them approach, and see their tell-tale white markings. The baby swam with his father, and the females to their right. We started up the motor and sped along next to them, and the male orca and the baby dove straight under our tiny 9-foot boat, and we saw them only feet below us. Had we jumped in we would have landed on them. The male was 25 feet long, easily, and must have weighed more than two tons. The baby was small, yet still larger than our boat. Had they wanted to overturn us, they could have done it with the flick of a fluke. After remaining under us for 20 seconds or so, they turned away, back out to sea, not interested in a sea lion breakfast, only passing through on their way to some other orca adventure. We hugged each other and sat in silence. It was 6:50am (mornings start early in Galapagos) and the sun had just risen. When we reached our yacht, the other few passengers (it slept only 16 people) saw our faces and asked us what amazing thing we had seen. It was the quietest breakfast I’d ever had that morning—no one made a peep. We sat in sheer awe and reverence and smiled and stared out at the water. I didn’t find those orcas; they found me. I've been swimming with dolphins and manta rays, penguins and sharks, seen grizzly bear families and had wild monkeys sit on my shoulder. I've ridden mules into the belly of the Grand Canyon, and taken photos of the very last member of an entire species of giant tortoise. I've held a hummingbird in my hands and tackled an injured pelican. But to this day, those five minutes with the orcas stand as the most incredible of my life.
