Reminder: Day of Listening Friday

[drwex]

A reminder that I'm attempting to participate in the national day of listening and I'd love it if you told me a story about yourself.

Comments

[sunstealer.livejournal.com]

I used to work on a whale watch boat and it seemed like every day lent itself to some story or other. In the hands of a talented story teller it would have been food for epic tales no doubt. As it stands, I saw some things that most people will never see and was able to generate a lifetime of conversational icebreakers (assuming that one can work filter feeding baleen whales into a conversation...)

I worked as a naturalist for a non-profit group based in Gloucester. We provided narration to a local whale watch company and in return, they provided us with a platform to do some research and fundraising. The crew didn't have to field annoying questions and we didn't have to mop up vomit. It worked out well.

One of the most enjoyable assignements we could get was for an english ecotourism group that would charter a whole boat for just 20 people. These boats usually held 150. They were polite (the people, not the boats. The boats each had personality but that's another story), they were deeply intersted and they loved almost anything you'd show them or talk about. Birds, ocean sunfish, basking sharks, bluefin tuna, whatever. It was all good.

I had a day with one of these groups where it seemed like everything came together in some sort of karmic boon. We left the dock at dawn and just as the sun was rising, happened upon a pod of 500+ Atlantic white sided dophins. The water was FAC (flat ass calm as we called it) and all you could hear after the captain shut down the engines was the sound of flippers and bodies leaping as far as you could see.
We stayed with them for about a half hour and then moved on to find some whales for our English guests...which we did and in spades. Giant, hump-backed spades.

Somehow we happened upon a couple of humpback whales (which are relaltively common out in Massachusetts Bay in summer) away from any other boats. Usually the whales ignore you and we try to stay far enough way to not disrupt their feeding.
Apparently today we were a source of great fascination to them and they spent the next 3 hours rolling in the water 15 feet away from the boat, diving, circling and occasionally rubbing their backs on the bottom of the 85 foot boat. The whole boat would twitch slightly when a 45 foot, 30 ton beastie used it as a scratching post. The two were eventually joined by two more, equally obsesed humpbacks.

They'd loll sideways in the water off the starbaord side and raise a flipper as they passed...a flipper that was 10 feet long and towered over the railing as it went by (the latin name for humpbacks is Megaptera noveangliae -big winged New Englander). You could see their eyes, even in the nearly black water, you could see the stovebolts in their snouts (enlarged hair follicles we think they use for detecting motion in the water), you could see every detail of color and scar and feature.

You could also smell them and really, the mythologized beauty of whales meets a seriously putrid speedbump when that happens. Imagine your breath if you ate nothing but a steady diet of 2,000 pounds of raw herring every day.
No on is quite sure why they, on rare occasions, become fascinated with boats. Curiosity? Attracted by the engine noise? Soemthing else we can't imagine yet?
no idea really...though it seems like the only thing that we can't easily rule out is curiosity and I personally root for that.

Not sure how well that translates as a story but there you are. It's one of my favorite memories. If you and the family don't get seasick, you should go out sometime. The odds of seeing that are small but you'll likely see something amazing.

[drwex]

That's super-neat! Thank you for sharing that.