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.

Fun behind The Shop

Shortly after I graduated from arch school I did a stint designing mega houses in Northern Virginia. I had sold my NYC urban assault moto bike and bought a beautiful (yet primitive by today’s standards) Cannondale mountain bike. My friend Jason and I used to ditch work early and ride the trails around Great Falls Park where the Potomac has class 5 rapids. We inadvertently had chosen a park that was frequented by some of Langley’s newest residents, fresh from mostly military careers, and now in the big leagues at ‘The Shop’.

In short, some of them were just major pricks, and even though I had a bell on my handlebars to warn them of our proximity (to which I got endless grief from hard core cyclists), they often refused to let us pass on the steep downhill single tracks. So Jason and I invented a game to make our rides more interesting and sporting.

We each bought beat up briefcases at the Tyson’s Corner Salvation Army. We would approach each other from opposite ends of the park and surreptitiously, in full view of one of these guys, exchange briefcases and ride off in separate directions.

Since these boys were on the verge of distinguished spook careers, they felt it necessary to chase after one of us. We got a great deal of exercise and delight dragging them up and down the very technical terrain. A few times they even followed us home and parked down the street with their ‘innocuous’ government cars pretending to read a map or newspaper while we sipped beers and cleaned our bikes.

One day I had a guy very determined to catching me. I had taken him to the top of a steep shale ridge and was roaring down the other side, intent on ditching him and linking up with Jason for some beers. As I barreled downwards, I spotted two trees on either side of the trail, so close that there was probably less than an inch to spare on either side of my handle bars. I did the math in my head and went for it. At the last millisecond I saw that there was a giant spider at face level in her web between the trees. As I was committed at this point, I went right through the middle and his web wrapped around my helmet.

I came to a not so graceful halt, ripped off my helmet trying to figure out where the spider was. In the midst of this the guy caught up to me and was trying to figure out why I was dancing around like a mad man with fingers franticly combing my hair. I regained my dignity and went over to retrieve the bike and briefcase out of the bushes. I opened up the case and offered him a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich. He huffed off in disgust.

About 20 years later I got a 911 call from a guy who was passing through Seattle on his motor yacht headed to Alaska the next morning. He needed an electrical problem fixed. After talking with him while I diagnosed and fixed his problem it became evident that he was an instructor at Langley and remembered me and Jason. In fact they had assembled a file on us. He told me, “Yea, we figured out pretty fast who you guys were and what you were up to. We thought it was a great way to train some of our slower recruits…”

I never did find the spider.

Taxi Cab Tag

I used to commute between where I lived in Brooklyn and my job working high rise construction in Manhattan on a Honda 110cc street/trail motorcycle. I had found that this was the ideal bike for the rough streets of the city. It was a very light bike and, although it wouldn't go much faster than 45 miles and hour, it was nimble and agile enough to get me around town in city traffic. Plus it was stout enough to survive the rough city streets.

The biggest nemesis to my safety and well being in the city were the taxi cabs. Anyone who is familiar with traffic in New York City knows that taxis are way up there on the aggressive driving pyramid. What little respect they have for pedestrians and cars is non-existent when it comes to motorcycles. Out of all of the close calls I've ever had on a motorcycle I would hazard to guess at least 90% were related to taxi cabs cutting me off in traffic or pulling out in front of me from the curb or side streets.

There is an old Dire Straights song called 'Making Movies' about a girl living in a large city who roller skates through traffic with music blasting through her headphones. The song on the radio dictates her rhythm and tempo as she weaves in and out of traffic. There is one line in the song that recounts her stance as an 'urban toreador' with a taxi cab. This gave me an idea as to my own dilemma regarding these aggressive cabs. I decided I wasn't going to take their abuse and instead of being their victim, I was going to play a game of my own devising with them. A game I liked to call 'Taxi Cab Tag'.

The rules were simple. I rode through traffic defensively with the intent of getting to work or home without incident. As always, I wore a full face helmet, a strong jacket, gloves, jeans, and usually, my steel toed Red Wing construction boots. If a taxi cab interfered with me in an aggressive manner I would gauge the playing field, traffic on the street, and then zoom up next to the driver's side door and give it a good kick. Tag! You're it! Foolish and stupid? Yes, but oh so fun. If there was any kind of traffic I had the advantage on my motorcycle. I could weave in and out of cars, take tight corners and generally confound any cab that decided to take up the challenge.

I got quite good at judging how well a taxi cab was going to play the game. A cab without a passenger was generally more likely to play the game but generally less likely to be aggressive in the first place. A cab with passengers was more likely to act aggressively but less likely to give chase.

One evening I found the perfect player for my game. Or rather he found me. A big yellow Checker Marathon cab ahead of me had just discharged his passengers at the curb and pulled directly out in front of me. It was only by a combination of hard braking and moving between lanes of traffic that I was able to avoid running into him. I always got off from work a little before rush hour really started in full swing, so the streets were packed but not congested. This gave me some room to maneuver plus gave the cabbie the sense that he could catch me. If it were just the two of us on a lonely stretch of road the taxi would have the advantage of speed and power to my advantage of maneuverability.

So, after this particular incident, I gained my composure and rode up next to the driver's door. I waited for a hole to open up in the next lane over to my left. Just big enough for me, but not for the cab. I kicked the cab's door as hard as I could with my steel toed RedWing (those Checkers had thick steel in their doors!) and waited to see the pissed off look of the cabbie before I broke left, went around a few cars and settled back down to the flow of traffic. In my right mirror I could practically see the steam coming out of the windows of the cab as he tried to switch lanes back and forth trying to catch up to me.

I knew the traffic lights so well on Second Avenue that I could tell where I was in the 'bubble' of green by looking at the crosswalk signs as I passed each intersection. Sometimes I would zoom up a few blocks ahead of the cab and let a red light catch me. But only if he was stuck at a light farther back. Several times I would make a quick right turn right as the pedestrians were starting to cross at the cross street.

I could tell that my game-mate this evening was very intent on catching up to me as he was making every effort to follow my every move through traffic. In fact he was getting more and more intent on connecting with me on some meaningful level. I saw him cutting off more and more people and at one point nearly run over some people in a cross walk. Our cat and mouse game had taken us all the way from the upper east side of Manhattan to the Wall Street area and now I was leading us back up Broadway towards the Village. I could have just zoomed off and left him in the dust at any time but I decided to have one final go with him.

The streets of Manhattan form a generally orderly grid, with mostly clean rectangular blocks. But Broadway was an old sheep path that lead up the island in a haphazard manner and divided blocks into odd shapes. I knew one block in particular that had an interesting alley in the center of it. When you entered the alley it appeared as if the alley dead ended at the buildings at the far end of it. These buildings were actually skewed slightly in such a manner that you couldn't see that there was a narrow pedestrian sidewalk between two of the buildings when you entered the alley.

Making sure that the cab was about half a block behind me, and in full view, I turned down the alley and rode to the end. I stopped the bike with the engine running, pointed towards the opening between the two buildings and waited. The cab entered the alley and stopped when he saw me at the end. Trapped. I figured the guy was going to inch down the alley and some point stop the cab, get out and come at me with ill intent. Instead the guy revved up the Marathon's engine and started tearing down the alley at me. I suddenly realized that this guy was intent on smashing me against the brick wall.

Down the alley he came at maybe 25 to 30 miles per hour. Not very fast but in the tight confines of the alley very fast indeed. I revved up my motor and put the bike into gear, waiting to pop the clutch and squirt through the hole in the wall when he got about 50 feet away. And then something incredible happened. Something that I wouldn't have imagined could happen.

This particular block has several restaurants and businesses along Broadway. As a result, there are many large steel dumpsters lining both sides of the alley. The other significant thing is that there is an almost imperceptible narrowing of the alley as it proceeds towards the end. When the cab was still about 70 to 80 feet away from me, just as I was ready to pop the clutch and bolt, he connected with one of the dumpsters and almost immediately glanced a dumpster in the other side. The dumpsters on either side of the cab rolled as much as they could but then each became jammed against their respective buildings. Like a wedge driven into a wet log the whole taxi cab became jammed between the dumpsters.

When he became stuck, the cab still had just enough forward momentum that the rear of the cab lifted slightly, and although the wheels were still touching the pavement, they could find no traction on the slippery cobblestones. I stared at the scene in dumbfound amazement. Here was this big Checker Marathon cab, stuck, with doors pinned on either side, not able to move. I got off of my bike and stared at the driver. He was in a rage unlike I had ever seen, pounding on the dash and the roof, practically foaming at the mouth and fixing his dark almond eyes on the with such malice that I nearly froze in my tracks.

I climbed over the cab to look at it from the rear. His back up lights were still on and the tired were spinning, barely touching the pavement. I took out my Swiss Army knife, pulled open the screw driver and did one of the most stupid things of my life. I crouched down in behind the rear bumper and took a trophy.

The Checker Cab's back up light is a separate clear round glass lens from the turn signal and running light lenses. It has two screws holding on a chrome ring which in turn holds on the glass lens. I took it apart and put the lens and chrome ring in my jacket pocket. I then climbed back over the cab with the irate cabbie still pounding away and hurling curses at me that would make Don King blush. I hoped back on the bike, started it back up, gave the cabbie a salute and rode through the hole in the wall.

I have often wondered what became of that cabbie. How he got out of there. He could have called his dispatcher and told them that he was stuck in a dead end alley. But how would he explain that? Or he would have had to break the thick glass of the front or rear window and crawled out, maybe to try to enlist the help of some friends to get his cab unstuck.

It was the last time that I ever played my cat and mouse game of Taxi Cab Tag. After a few more close calls with the motorcycle in the city and surrounding boroughs, I elected to retire it in greener pastures in Connecticut before it killed me or, more likely I killed myself with it.

(c) Kai Schwarz 2012