We’ve gone whale watching from time to time over the years, most recently out of Monterey, California, but we always come home feeling like we’ve missed something special.
It has nothing to do with the whales or the operators, but with our expectations.
You see, we went on a magical whale watching trip once, and no trip has ever been quite as moving since.
Whenever I read The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I’m there with Reepicheep sailing off to the ends of the earth where the water vanishes into the horizon.
I can see it because the ocean and sea felt like that once on a whale watching trip out of Plymouth, Massachusetts.
We were on a trip with the Mystic Aquarium, one summer afternoon. The children were toddlers and my husband newly home from sea. We rode out into Boston Bay and perhaps beyond, for two hours before we saw anything.
But then, the whales came.
Our ship wasn’t large and one whale in particular took a fancy to us. He “spy hopped,” came out of the water and fixed and eye on the 100 people on this ship. While our cameras clicked and we pointed, he disappeared back under the water.
And came up on the other side to spy hop again.
He played this game with us for a long time; long enough that we could almost count the barnacles on his brow he became so familiar.
And then he turned to his side and waved.
The ship flexed and tilted as we scurried from one side to the other watching the whale.
No one spoke. Just listened to the splashing.
I pondered what the whale thought he was doing. Just out swimming around when he came upon a boatload of people who instantly pulled out small devices and aimed at him. Perhaps he was in a playful mood that day, toying with us and watching us respond to him.
The leviathan of the deep was so big, he could have flipped our ship over with his tail.
Fortunately, unlike Reepicheep who could not have hurt us valiant mouse though he was, the whale had the power to destroy.
Instead, he teased.
Not exactly a tame lion, but a benign humpback whale playing in the sun.
The light that day was magical, as perhaps you can see in the waving photo. The blue ocean silvered as it neared the horizon until it melted into a golden cloudy sky–much like I envisioned the far Silver Sea of Narnia.
“Very soon the open sea which they were leaving was only a thin rim of blue on the western horizon. Whiteness, shot with faintest color of gold, spread around them on every side.”
The waters off Massachusetts our whale watching day looked like liquid metal, and shimmered in the setting sun.
The only sounds were the quiet thrum of the engine and the joyous gasps of the watchers.
When the boat turned west to return the long ride back to dock, the whale spy hopped in our wake.
As soon as we got far enough away, he breached.
I stood in the back and watched him breach, again, and again, and again; almost as if he was pleading with us to stay and play.
I watched a long time, counting, until he was nearly out of sight. He must have breached forty times, a lonely whale in the midst of the sea.
Magic.
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