I wish
you were with me on the ferry, this summer. It was amazing!
I was
travelling between the Island and the mainland with some relatives. I got up to
stretch my legs and take a look around ship. Why not? How often does one get to
travel this way?
I was on
my way to the gift shop to see the trinkets and baubles they had to offer, when
the public announcement system came to life.
“Attention
passengers.” Said a male voice, “Off the port side – or left side – of the
ship, there has been a report of a sighting of a humpback whale. If you go to
the port side of the ship, you might still be able to see it.”
A
humpback? Are you kidding me?
Like many
of the other passengers around me, I ran in wild circles like a dog chasing its
tail, trying to figure out which side of the ship was the port. (Yes, the man
on the P.A. had just finished telling us, but when there’s the possibility of a
humpback whale sighting, the human brain kind of shuts down for a minute.)
When I
got it sorted out, I followed the stampede to a row of windows. A crowd of us
stood there, cameras at the ready. I looked out over the unending rolling,
cresting water, and gave myself a moment to think about how many untold tons of
water there were out there, and how many untold millions of years it’s been
rolling and cresting like this without rest. It happened to be a bit of a
choppy day, so it was rolling perhaps a bit more than usual. (Although it could
be a bit difficult for a hopeless landlubber like me to be a judge of what “usual”
would look like.)
I was
getting almost hypnotized by the pitching waves. On the sea, with no land or
other reference to go by, it can be very difficult to tell how far away things
are happening.
But it
wasn’t too far from the ship that I suddenly saw it: a single spout of water
shooting up from the sea toward the gray sky! In a heartbeat, it grew taller
and taller, then shrank out of sight again. Just like that! Almost before you
could be sure you were even seeing it.
“That’s
one of them.” A nearby passenger murmured to his companion. I hadn’t been able
to get my camera ready fast enough, so now I posed it right near my eye and
waited for the next sighting.
And
waited. And waited.
The other
passengers began to wander away, and suddenly I realized I was the last one
standing there.
But as I
gazed out to sea, I thought, for one moment, that I saw a large, gray back
break the surface of the ocean and then sink into the depths again. Did I really,
or was it just an ocean swell, sprinkled liberally with a healthy dose of
wishful thinking?
Oh well.
It didn’t matter. These huge, magnificent animals were nearby, and that was
good enough for me.
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