The Inside Passage -- Whales

The Inside Passage -- Whales

     Thar she blows cannot be mistaken for anything other than whales, those rare leviathans that once roamed the seas in vast numbers.  And even in these rich waters of where we were in the protected Alaskan panhandle --and after basking in the warm waters of Hawaii for their migration-- the returning humpback whale population has been estimated to be no more than 500 in this area (the gray whale, which migrates up from the Baja Peninsula in Mexico, is faring better with a population estimated to be over 25,000).  They are both toothless, the baleen curtains of their mouths taking in only small feeder fish and tiny krill (the curtained filter hangs only from their top jaw and dangles freely at the bottom); our guest lecturer said to liken their mouths to sheets of corduroy, the linear stripes expanding from a tight weave to a wide-spread one as they blow out the nutrients-rich water from their mouths.  And here's another distinctive feature, toothless whales have TWO nostrils (the term "blowhole" is now not really used)...whales which have teeth have only one nostril.  Still, staring at the side of our ship and noting its rather quick cruising speed, one found it hard to imagine the long and slow migration of these whales, traveling thousands of miles to reach their breeding grounds, only to have the make the journey home; the fact that we would cruise past forested hills and checkered islands of fog and hidden wildlife, then sleep and awaken to find only more of the same, then  repeat the process the next day and the next...and we STILL wouldn't have left the shelter of land, well, it was difficult to imagine the journey of the whales.  The vast seemingly empty ocean ahead would appear to be almost endless, day after day and night after night, and somehow to arrive at the right island or the right cove or the right bay.  It was yet another dazzling glimpse of something so innate that it lay just beyond our comprehension.

    The occasional spouting that we would witness from our ship gave little clue to the whales below, their slow speed of travel (both the gray and humpback whales average somewhere around 5 mph or about the pace of a brisk walk for us) the only giveaway to how they could be spotted and chased so easily even by sailing ships out to hunt them.  Little did they realize that something could fall from the skies above, something sharp and shooting into their hearts causing them to slowly bleed out, their brains (5 times or more the size of ours) not understanding what was happening and their energy draining, the water beginning to drag them further and further to a future unknown, their 14-foot flippers now no longer able to propel them away from this pain and danger, their grapefruit-sized eyes growing more and more dim.  But for now, our passing ship posed no danger, only gawking tourists marveling at how efficiently these 40 tons of flesh (they weigh anywhere from 16 to 45 tons once fully grown) could glide through the water, their surfacing taking in enough air to keep them down far beyond our patience level (grays go down for just 3-4 minutes but the humpback can stay down for nearly 30 minutes, as can the orcas).
  
     There were several other differences in the two, the grays scooping their food from the bottom while the humpbacks simply took in mouthfuls of water (both eat about one and a half TONS of food daily); perhaps this was why they sang (the grays don't have a song, per se, but rather a moaning-type of verbal communication), a song to celebrate the 40+ years awaiting them (the orca can live to 80) and a song so unique that each will etch it into their memory as specifically as we would an ancestral voice.  Nestled behind the humpback's dorsal fin is a hump, as in one hump, while the grays have many (what are called knuckles due to their prevalence and smaller size), their mottled coloring simply the result of sunburned skin flaking off (who knew?).  But all of this we couldn't see, our fumbling for binoculars far too slow to keep pace with their slow drifting away from the ship.  A few more gulps of air for them, and a few more desperate looks from us, and they were gone. Perhaps they were hungry...we were.  Only our food was already one meal ahead, the cooking and preparing of lunch already underway as the breakfast was being cleared.  For the whales, the gill net season for salmon fishing had just opened so within their quest to gulp down a few tons of morsels there might also be a nylon net or two; if they were lucky, they would miss the nets altogether or tear right through them.  But maybe not, maybe they would simply run into these and rest in this newest unknown from above, struggling as helplessly as a netted bird, resigned that their time had run out and that they would wonder what this time on earth was all about, a time once so peaceful now made so complicated. And perhaps with their ancestral song, they would communicate once more to those able to listen to at such low frequencies, telling all that things hadn't changed much, that life would go on...just not as expected.  This accidental capturing happens a bit more frequently than we think, the video from NOAA providing an interesting view of a complicated rescue operation to free them from tangled buoys and other nets.

Photo from NOAA (we did not see this although some did)

     From our ship, the reports would come in...a pod of orcas, a pod of whales, a breech.  And each time, we would rush over to join the others who would point to a remnant of splashy water.  "You should have seen it," they would say, just as we would say to others a bit later.  Some viewed orcas up close, others saw a pool of dolphins heading the other way, others a spray of water off in the distance.  And occasionally, we all would see whales on both sides, or at least their snouts as they surfaced as went back down in the water like an off-balanced wheel steadily moving at its own pace, aware of our ship but apparently dealing with more important callings.  A few sprays, then a few more, then a few more until it seemed that all of us were pleased to see so many, even if they were just glimpses.  We had hoped and expected to see just a whale, any whale, and now they were being passed on both sides, a full twenty minutes, their numbers likely equally plentiful.  They are still threatened, and endangered, in certain parts of the world;  but the National Oceanic and Atmoshperic Association reports that humpback populations are increasing as are the gray whales along the Eastern coastal waters of the Pacific (the gray whale population apparently has never recovered on the Western side and is now listed as "depleted"). 

Mother and pup on ice

    As with the sighting of the grizzly, or the seals with their pups on ice flows, or the eagles overhead, the common theme seemed to be that no matter our differing views of politics or wildlife or what we ate, we became children again at the sighting of something still wild as if we were glad to have proof that such areas and animals still existed and still ran free.  Perhaps we were thinking of ourselves, this vacation aboard a floating metal vessel being our own freedom of sorts, that we could still find areas to hike or to sail to or to discover.  My wife and I felt extremely fortunate, not only in witnessing such sights but in recognizing just how many people would love to be switching places with us, even if only for a day.  Some would be limited by health or family or finances, while others would be ready to embark on our same journey as soon as we returned.  And still others would have no interest, perfectly content in their lives wherever that might be.  And it was all okay, but we selfishly wished that everyone could fill themselves with what we were seeing...the mystery was the mystery, the newness, the discovery and the willingness to discover, something asked of Scientific American Mind, "Why does time seem to speed up with age?"  Said the magazine: When it comes to how we perceive time, humans can estimate the length of an event from two very different perspectives: a prospective vantage, while an event is still occurring, or a retrospective one, after it has ended...Engaging in a novel exploit makes time appear to pass more quickly in the moment.  But if we remember that activity later on, it will seem to have lasted longer than more mundane experiences.  The reason?  Our brain encodes new experiences, but not familiar ones, into memory, and our retrospective judgement of time is based on how many new memories we create over a certain period.  In other words, the more new memories we build on a weekend getaway, the longer that trip will seem in hindsight.  For us, the sighting of the whales would last far longer than we would know, the massive mammals likely watching time in a world of their own, traveling for nearly two months to reach an ancient calling and probably also experiencing new memories along the way...memories such as spotting us in the distance, eager faces smiling and ready to make peace and bid them only a good journey.