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Whale TalesSan Ignacio Lagoon is on the edge of Forever |
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By Paula Walker Brightwood, Oregon From the journal of Paula Walker Well then, there was this baby … well actually this baby & Mom. And we were scootching back to the camp (Campo Cortez) for lunch. We’d already been out over two hours and it had been a sweet, truly, magical morning. We’d had a couple of encounters, I mean those close up kind where you actually get to, I mean to say the whale allows you to, touch it. Such a thrill. And who could complain. These encounters had been as enduring as any had been so far. Enduring in the length of time as well as enduring in the impression on mind & soul. I mean, how many people do you know, how often have you, gotten to make finger-contact with a whale at it’s own request – Blue, Grey, Humpback or otherwise? So really, one can’t complain when the morning is filled with spy-hops 10-feet from your itty-bitty panga (appx. 20 ft. skiff with outboard motor) and even some moments of touch, those super-earthly events when a baby Grey would come close enough and remain long enough for you to touch it; to feel it’s silky surface just below and enhanced by the texture of the green sea you’re floating on. Then to add to that there were these dolphin and turtle encounters. When we first spotted the whales it had been preceded by two dolphins’ curving scimitar shapes, brown and belonging, before the bow, and to the right a very large sea turtle. This was the first one I’d seen there. Rob and Maldo often called out “Turtle” but they would be gone before I caught sight of them. But not today. There was no missing this one. It was as though a gathering had been called for the resident artist to make an eco-poster – you know, one of those Wyland-esque sorts. And then, as we left the whales, suddenly the ‘cousins’ and ‘relations’ appeared again. Sanctioning the time we’d spent. Giving their blessings of form and motion to the morning’s time with the whales. Most magical. I felt quite satisfied. The time with the whales had been as delicious as each and every other outing had been, with the bonus of some sweet contact skin-to-skin -- and the ‘punctuation points’-- visits by dolphins and turtles, were added glimmers on a sparkly day. Most of the morning had been filled with Maria, the pinto Grey whale (she had
So I say this because as we approached I am certain now that Maldo had that ‘extra sense’ about this mother and baby. As he started to slow the panga I became filled with that heightened sense of Fingers indeed !!! Rob & I spent the next hour massaging this little, not-so-little, “crea” (Spanish - and I’m not sure the spelling – for baby grey whale). Yes, we massaged its body and it massaged our souls. This side of the boat, that side of the boat, on the bow, at the stern. I would get soaked from this little one expelling it’s breath so near me that it was like a sudden, brief rainstorm. Sometimes it would make shudder-breaths like it was really enjoying the touch – hope so. Funny, intimately close sounds. Such a privilege. Emblazoned on my mind, in my cells, forever, hopefully … forever.
I mentioned getting wet. I was in bliss getting doused, there were baby ‘shnorfulls’ and momma ‘SHNORFULLS’ causing sea‑smelling rainstorms upon us, and times when rubbing the baby’s body as it sank deeper and deeper and I reached further and further that I’d be up to my shoulders before I realized it … and then there was the belly rubbing moment where it’s a wonder I didn’t end up down 20-30 feet with the baby as I continued to reach mesmerized by the moment until my face hit the water and I got a wet-cold reminder that my reality was the boat and best keep my body in it.
Yes, Rob & I were besotted. And we were smilin’ !! San Ignacio Lagoon is on the edge of Forever … Sunrises invite you to be still and watch – for great length. Sunsets defy description, burden your mind to the extent and intensity of their display such that you surrender attempts to quantify or qualify in your inner voice and simply just witness -- in awe. One evening against just such a backdrop I walked up to Cesse (spelling again – Maldo’s brother’s wife) who pointed my attention to a coyote amid the brush and color. She then, in hushed tones, seeming like myself not to want to disturb the moment, started to count them. I don’t speak Spanish. She doesn’t speak English. But our shared wonder as she counted once and once again confirming that there were five of them looking at the two of us, was barrier-free. The wonders of this biosphere, this World Heritage site seem as infinite as the view in any direction of the landscape itself. The passage to the whales and the return are as filled with remarkables as the whales themselves. Speeding out in the panga from the camp to a hoped for time with whales - pelicans move your attention, not because they demand it, not because they need it, but because they have a timelessness that calls to something deep inside you. They swoop down low to the water and skim along the surface, effortlessly pacing your panga with no motion in their wings. They look sideways at you and you are reminded of something mythical and wise – flying Gandalfs (for those who've been initiated by the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.) You look beyond the bow and suddenly realize there are not one, but three or four dolphins heading to ‘seize the moment’ as your panga’s bow wave gives them a joy ride … actually they give the joy, you give the ride … Particular to this lagoon I am emblazoned with the sight of a sable-brown shape of scimitar and fin that is dolphin. Such pleasure just in that shape, that color as it curves perfectly for a flash-bulb’s-moment along your vision captivating you with it’s delight. Tortugas (if you’re Spanish), Honu (if you’re Hawaiian), Sea Turtle by any other name pop up here and there, but you have to be lucky, very lucky to see them. They break the surface for the briefest of breaths and only if you’ve been graced to be looking at that exact spot of a very large expanse of sea & sky will you see them this time of year. I understand they hibernate primarily during the winter months but are abundant and in the summer they are many to see. The terns seem to have a different call in the afternoon than in the morning. And they and the pelicans give the fish no rest. Diving down with such velocity that sometimes in your eagerness you mistake the geyser they create on impact for the blow of the mother and calf you are straining to see. The cormorants are many as well, and they always must be at a point that crosses your bow when you are rushing upon them and their creature mind says it is not safe, even though there may be a 20 yard clearance. Still they are propelled to move and with miles on either side of them, they must choose to beat the boat across its bow. But for whatever it is that makes cormorants do cormorant things, they wait till the last minute, eyeing your oncoming boat, neck back, head up in a posture that suggests “You wouldn’t. You won’t. Don’t dare.” And then, almost too late it seems, decide “You will and I must be out of here”, they flap furiously, lifting their body but not their webbed feet from the water they proceed for some suspended-minutes-of-time in which you are sure they cannot possibly make their trajectory without colliding with you, they proceed to fly / walk-on-water making it to the new ‘safe place’ as you pass and they settle down giving you that ‘cocked back’ look just in case you do ‘anything funny’ at the last moment. I haven’t mentioned the sea lions yet have I … well yes there are sea lions, and Maldo had the ones we saw our last whale‑outing nearly alcoholic with his expert sea lion imitations. Maldo spotted them first, no surprise, and called them to our attention, and just as they were preparing to dive back under their cover of sea, Maldo called out – something – in ‘sea-lionese’ that caught them up short and around they looked and around they looked. Then with an ‘Oh well’ started to descended again, when again Maldo said “Psst, Psst, Hey there” or something like that. And again, confusion growing on their faces, and yes you can discern confusion on a sea lion’s face (or maybe we’d just been at camp too long !), they searched the area around them for the sea lion companion trying to get their attention. For those of you who have ever seen a reddish egret in action I need say no more. For those of you who haven’t, this is a show not to miss. When the tide is low the mudflats of the lagoon are a banquet hall for the many birds, the few I’ve mentioned and the many I haven’t. Well our first sighting was a late afternoon. Someone spotted this very large bird at the edge of the lagoon and called my attention to it. What a show. The epitomy of the absent minded, uncoordinated, nerd-of-a-nerd cartoon in action. It would dash this way and that way, seeming always to be in some manner at-odds with itself being that it’s head would move and its large ponderous body at the bottom of its loosey-goosey neck would stay where it was until at last pulled along, in reluctance by the shear momentum set up by the head in motion. Then when the feet finally joined the rest of the act, it would jump up as though stung by something in the sand, or by the startling realization that it missed an important appointment it had better hurry off to. And so it went, for bugs-bunny-moments-on-end, settling down one minute, dazed ruffled and prodded by some invisible goad the next. You swore you could hear it saying, “Where did I put my ….????”, “Oh, I’m late for ….!!!” Then it would suddenly spot a delectable and nab it with precision while looking like it would certainly fall on its head, a spectacle of mud and feathers in the attempt. Well as you can see, this creature gave us no end of entertainment and amusement. It was good stuff for the many Rob-isms it evoked which of course added to and amplified the superb silliness that had your sides aching. The first afternoon we spotted this it might have been misconstrued that the camp Margaritas were embellishing the situation, but not. Many a morning we’d watch the antics of this egret morning-dining with his curlew buddy, or ‘torpedoe duck’ -- some variety of little duck that was on a frenzy of stealth fish feeding, bow-waving just under the water, while egret looked on from his dazed height between fits of impelled movement. Contrasted with the marvelous foolishness is Osprey. There were two of them, to be seen early mornings and late afternoon, on the wing, on the hunt, or sitting large on a greened sand dune. A feast for the eyes as you swept the landscape close and far taking in the contrasts, the starkness. The verdant variance of the estuary marshland, spilled out across the dryness. Golds and roses so elusively mixed in that you’re certain there is a trick of the eye desiring to add something that isn’t really there; white, White sand dunes; the Sierra Santa Clara jagged and monumental … the kind of skyline that inspires one to paint or write … or be quiet; the white caps unbroken that point to where the Pacific waits ready for the long journey and reminds constantly of the safety that stops at the lagoon. I pray for the safety of those serene and trusting creatures who opened the fabric of time itself for me to know them in this intimate way. I pray that my pleasure brings them no harm. I pray that my touch does not make them more vulnerable to those who would hurt. I pray for a world that can know these creatures in their magnificence and understand the responsibility for this. I pray … “con Dios Ballenas …” |
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a very distinctive patch of white, a tiny saddle blanket patch afore her dorsal fin), and her baby. Maldo, our guide, recognized her. Said she’s been sighted in the Guerro Negro lagoon in other years as well (another birthing lagoon north of San Ignacio). He knows her ‘personally’ and knows her to be a definite “friendly”, i.e. she’ll sometimes come up to the boat with her baby and ambassador for the species. So we spent time following Maria and her calf this morning hoping that today she was in an inter-species frame of mind. And certainly she was as we had a number of opportunities to see her and her bambino up close and even were granted some contact. But then another panga came along with a family and children in it and the baby seemed more interested in them. Which has been my experience that babies are attracted to babies and baby whales are no different. Watching them (the family in the other panga), their delight and eagerness at the approaching baby and at the contact invited was fun-making for me. I just thrill to watch the unbelievable spectacle of 90 – 200 lbs leaning overboard to greet 2 tons of creature accompanied by its 35 ton mom (the mom being bigger than the entire boat the human creatures are bobbing trustingly around in). Each reaching out from a world only partially visible to the other. But I know that in the moment of contact the leviathan knows more of the human than vice versa.
But then, as I say … there was this mother and baby … 
possibility and barely containable excitement at the prospect of the morning-not-quite-yet-done. And it most certainly wasn’t. As we stopped near this mother and baby I leaned over and splashing water in their direction (a technique coached by Maldo to get their attention and let them know you ‘want to talk fingers’), invited them to come be as curious about me as I was about them, when suddenly I heard Maldo’s voice urging my attention saying “… there, there” and sure enough looking where he pointed there was the water-shadow of the baby coming to the surface by the boat. Oh glorious!! Maybe, just maybe, it would want fingers … and mine were ready.
Rob likes to recount as an apex that in parting, I kissed this little baby on the snout. He says I could have hugged it if I chose. While this carries the element of the sensational, the moment was full with the genuine, it was not a made‑for‑movie action. I had been so careful to be respectful to this delightful spirit. When I realized that it genuinely enjoyed my contact and that I wasn’t invading its space, I was elated. It was a very freeing understanding. I had filled my intention with doing what was satisfying to this creature to experience and hoped not to be just self-fulfilling. What a pleasure to realize that it was mutual. At any rate, there was this moment when the little creature spy-hopped right beside me and I realized I could kiss this snout, why not, when would there ever be such a time, so I did.
Well we both (Rob & I) were scratching, rubbing fools-for-baby-whale and it seemed to know it. Who else knew it was mom. This baby and our actions, each and every one, were accounted for by her attention. She was there every moment. Sometimes she’d come up right beside the panga with the baby – but just out of reach. Sometimes she’d be just below the baby looking up at us – that eye …. Sometimes she’d be under the boat apprising us of her immensity – intentionally or not – this was a message both sobering and giving in it’s display. Sometimes she’d be resting a ways from the boat, waiting, attending, and the baby would go over to her and lounge across her nose, rolling this way and that pec fins flapping, playful in the wonderful way loved-babies everywhere have with their mom, knowing that they can go explore and then return for assurance and security and then sojourn again.