Whales in the Night

Whales in the Night

(c) Kai Schwarz 2010

I'm in Crecent City, CA. "A harbor of desperation, not destination" as one of the locals calls it. Well, certainly not desperation, but it sure was nice to dry out the boat and catch my breath after a few exciting days on the edge of out of control on the ocean. A couple of big gray whales had waved their tail flukes at me just outside of Newport, OR just as the sun set and I was putting to sea few days before. I headed out to the 125 degree longitude line and met a few ships there. GPS's have made it too easy to follow a line in the water. I tucked back inside about 5 miles through following seas and with the winds steadily rising.

I put first one reef on the main, then two and then downed the jib altogether. I tried a downwind reach with the main, a silly idea given the conditions, but it was way too wild to dose the main and put up a small jib. So I rode her like that for two days.

I saw bursts of speed in the high sevens and one 9.3 knot ride (according to the GPS) as I surfed down some of the steep following waves. Though theoretically impossible for a 26' foot 4 ton displacement boat with a hull speed around 5.5 knots, 'Desire' must have been planning the water with the shallow flat part of her hull between the two keels. She handled it like a champ, carving across some impossibly steep slopes without any noticeable side slip. I made for Crecent City on the morning of the third day just to get of the craziness for a while.

The harbor master has me tied up in the midst of the fishing fleet, all stinky and rusting with a few proud boats here and there. The cruising boats were on the other side of the harbor but there's a tribe of it's own over here.

After a day or two I'm well dried out now and ready for another round on the ocean. But there is one weather system after the other marching across the Pacific right now. I wait a week until I finally see a window big enough for me to head South for a few days.

I get the boat ready for offshore again and head out into a sunny windless day. The only clouds I see are a thin band on the horizon and I keep motoring farther out and slightly South West. Six miles out I hit a very low fog bank. It's now all silvery and bright with blue skies above as I head right for the sparkly 2'oclock sun under engine power.

With a cotton candy sunset on slow rolly seas I stop the motor and raised the sails in about 3 knots of wind. Then the wind stalls and it gets real dark and wooly. I keep popping on the radar every 10-15 minutes just to have a peak around as I bob in the foggy dark.

Vega and a handful of her closest neighboring stars are directly above me. I call a few fishing boats in the area on the VHF but nobody can tell me how far out this fog bank goes. I'm out of the coastal shipping lanes, so I decide to just bob in the fog for the night.

I go below, light the liquid paraffin in my Dietz oil lamp and cook some grub in the warm amber glow of the light. At one point I stick my head outside and see a growing glow in the dark fog. Ship? Fishing boat? Las Vegas? I turn the radar on and cycle through several of the settings, not seeing anything but a few fishing boats about ten miles away. I finally realize it's just the moon, just before full and glowing orange and yellow in the fog bank, carving it's own golden canyons with honey covered ridges and hollows as it rises through the varying densities of fog.

I had just finished my meal when there are wet sounds in the dark behind the boat. The distinctive sounds of mammals breathing at the surface of the sea. Seals? Porpoises? Maybe a wandering gray whale? Then, in one of those Kodak moments you see on a postcard, that Madison Avenue or Disney could not have crafted any better, a resounding wet blow and a pair of big dark slippery backs glide through the inky black water 150 yards to port, right between me and the golden moonlit fog canyons.

The two whales circle around in the dark in front of me and I loose their sounds in the fog thinking they have headed South. I go back to cleaning up after diner. Suddenly I hear a big wet blow outside, real close on the starboard side.

I dart my head out of the companion way hatch to see the wake and bubbles 16 feet next to the boat. Then a snort and a big wet black back behind me about 20 feet. Then, two big wet backs 10 feet off the port! They circle again and I get the camera and try to get them as they round the side and back again. One whale is about 30 feet long and the other one nearly twice as long as the boat at around 50 feet!

My camera's flash produces and loud snort, of disgust or maybe surprise. I think it's probably not a good idea to startle them again, given how close they are to me and my fragile craft. My other hand backs away from the engine switch.

They circle around again. I've got one hand on the Gumby (survival) suit now and the other bracing myself in the companion way. One little brush against my hull, especially around the prop and steering, and 'Kodak Moment' lends itself to a whole new meaning.

What do you want of me? I know I must be a heck of an enigma to you. Here 20 miles offshore, in the calm fog and dark, under a golden moon, seeming to be a whole lot like a whale and yet not. A shackle on my leeward shroud acting like a sliding thumb on a big base guitar string, all of the creaks and rustlings that my boat and flopping sails are making.

Suddenly I remember 'Desire' has a heart beat! The depth sounder makes a periodic throbbing sound that you can hear when you hold an AM radio close to the instrument's display, a periodic pulse very much like a heart beat.

Even my hull is trying to mimic a whale, with her round pudgy hull and twin keels jutting out like flukes.

The bigger guy slips by the dark starboard side again. He eyes me sideways as he hangs off the transom for a bit. Then he disappears into the inky liquid black sea.

A few moments later he is back on the starboard side, his head rising out of the water right next to the cockpit!

There are so many shiny knobs and folds on his head I can't find his eyes but I can feel them look straight through me.

After a few tense moments, just me and him on the ocean, he let's out a resonate trumpet of sound. I'm close enough to almost touch him and his sound goes right through my body, right to the core of my soul. It's kind of like an elephant's trumpet, but a much lower tone with an incredible amount of resonance and power behind it. Had I been in the water, I'm sure my bones would have liquefied from the intensity and powere of that sound.

My spine turns to jello anyway, but a death grip on the companionway edge holds me there. He slides back down into the inky black depths beside my boat. I loose my grip on the companionway and roll into a ball on the floor, tears streaming from my face.

How the heck can something so fundamentally real and beautiful be so frightening at the same time? Nothing in my life has prepared me for the intensity of this moment and the wide range on emotions coursing through me. Primordial powerful beauty so close and dangerous, yet so gentle and compassionate at the same time.

I regain my composure and stand up, slowly reaching for the VHF microphone and turning it to channel 22 (for non-emergency Coast Guard communications).

'US Coast Guard, this is the sailing vessel Desire'

'Go ahead Desire, this is Coast Guard'

'Good evening sir, this is Desire. I am at North 41 degrees 25 tack 7 by West 124 degrees 23 tack 7 minutes. I've had a couple of large whales circling me for the past 15 minutes and just wanted to let someone know I was here. I wish to report a pon-pon situation at present (non-emergency concern). If I am not heard from again in the next 10 to 15 minutes please send assistance.'

'Roger Desire, you are at North 41 degrees 25 tack 7 West 124 degrees 23 tack 7 and are reporting that you have seen whales?'

'That's affirmative'

'Roger'

*silence*

'Desire back to 16'

I wanted to scream that I hadn't just 'seen' whales but that they were intent on sticking there big wet bulbous heads into my fragile boat and treating me like a pool toy! (I did call back later to report that I was OK)

I put the mike back on the clip and pop my head up to see what my wet friends are up to. Due East of me, silhouetted in the golden moonlit fog canyons I see a big black fluke with white and black bumps all over it, sticking straight up out of the water 50 yards away. It slowly flops back into the sea. The dark body beneath it slips forward in the water and disappears in the foggy dark ahead. I decide to motor back to Crescent City in the morning and wait for some wind to push me South.