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January 9, 2008
reader mail: ed and the whales
One of the many "Ed" responses to last week's "What should I write about?" survey suggested that, if possible, I should write about both Ed and whales. Only one such story is possible, but for what it's worth, here it is.
It was 2005. I'd been reading reports about a half dozen orcas who had been raising hell with the seal population all over Hood Canal's 70 miles. I'd gone looking for them several times, but even enormous underwater animals proved damned hard to find overwater. At this point, it became a grudge. I packed my idiot dog and her food into my boat and resolved not to come back until there be whales.
Ed was a grudging partner. She tolerated the boat. It was something she did because I, not she, enjoyed it. (Enter a blowjob joke here.) But she was game, and after a fruitless day of searching we moored at a slip at the south end of the canal and spent the night. She was relieved that the constant pounding of the boat relented for a time.
The next morning we set out again, and within five minutes we saw a furious, violent thrashing in the water ahead of us. There was no doubt that we were not only seeing the orcas but that we were seeing them hunt. I stopped several hundred yards away. These were mammal-eating transients, not the tofu-and-sprout-eating local resident orcas. I dropped my hydrophone into the water, and Ed and I listened to their excited chatter. And then they noticed us.
Two enormous adults headed right at us, repeatedly breaching into the air as they lunged in a straight line toward my increasingly tiny boat. I did the math.
Boat: not quite 2000 pounds when wet.
Two mammal-eating orcas: 24,000 pounds.
I fucking hate math. As I called in the sighting and attempted to film the action on my camera, the whales went all Jaws on me, plowing through the surface of the water, like torpedoes bull-rushing the side of my boat. I cannot begin to explain how primal your feelings become when a carnivore this huge and powerful takes such an aggressive interest in you. You feel utterly fragile and so, so slow. Yes, I knew they weren't going to eat me. And I knew they probably wouldn't sink me. I knew these things. I just couldn't feel them.
I watched them plow all the way to the side of my boat. I never saw them veer. I braced for the inevitable impact. Ed, meanwhile, noticed the whales and hung herself out the side window. And just before the first whale glided gracefully under the boat—with a wad of bloody, pulpy seal remains visibly clenched in her mouth like a gum bubble—she rolled to her side to look at my idiot dog. Her eye couldn't have been a yard away from Ed's dangling legs and head.
Ca-righst. Does Ed look like a seal hung on a hook? The whale wasn't scoping me out, after all. The two females headed off into the sunrise, chattering away, perhaps speculating about the hairy, curiously retarded seal they'd just seen. And I realized I was supporting my weight with my arms, lest my knees collapse.
Here's a clip of me calling in the sighting. I'll warn you now that my camera's 30-second limitation kicked in just as it was getting interesting. This clip is more remarkable for demonstrating Ed's aforementioned retardation.
posted by john at 6:03 AM • permalink