Just a Little More on Whales

As I have attempted to recap my holiday in photos today, more words keep spilling to the surface. It is the whale videos that have got me writing once again.

Today, I went back and posted a video of my very first whale sighting in the "No Scary Bugs Yet" blog post. That was the morning we were sailing towards Icy Straight Point.

Prior to that morning, I had thought perhaps that some of the black spots that I had seen in the ocean were the fins of a whale (on learning more, I am now wondering if those may have been seals). But I wasn't certain. But that morning. The morning I shot that video, I was the one (at least within earshot) who spotted the whales off to the side of the ship first.

There is a quiet exhilaration as you find nature right in your own 'back yard'. To be staring off into the water and spot life is a wonderful thing. To see your first whale is pretty darn thrilling. It wasn't quite inventing the wheel ... or finding out that the earth is not flat. But it's the closest thing to a natural discovery that I have come across in a while.

I could stare out at the ocean and be content with the quiet waves. My eyes became keen when shades of darkness came to the surface. But it is that breath of a whale - the exhalation and the spray of water that captivates your soul.

It was a day later when we officially went whale watching in Juneau. They have a money back guarantee that you will see a whale. And they have never paid out a penny. We saw whales. Lots of whales. But you still don't get past the awe factor. I was listening to the video today as I edited my movies and what you hear from those on board, is a silent reverence. And the 'wow' factor when the whale flips its tail fin and goes for that final deep dive.

The whales that stand out the most for me though, are the whales that 'flipped us the tail' in Skagway.

Skagway was a 'day lost' for me, but as we headed back to our ship after our excursion there were two whales off in the far distance. They were practically vertically downstream of our catamaran. You could just hear the exhalation of their breath and see the spray of water before they took their shallow dives. They did just enough breaths to grab my attention. Then they came up for their final breath of air before they took their deep dive.

That final deep dive was as if it was done in slow motion. It must have been the angle that we were viewing them from, but all I remember was that prolonged view of that tail fin before they disappeared. It was a moment frozen in time. No picture. No video. Just a memory.

A memory of that glorious tail fin, in suspended animation. A clear vision at the end of a cloudy day of memories.

I just had to write about it so I will forever be reminded. Sometimes, it is the pictures of the heart that last the longest. And this ... was just one of those moments.