NEW MEANING TO WHALE WATCHING

The following is an absolutely amazing excerpt from the book The Grandest of Lives by Douglas Chadwick. At this point in the story, they are on a whale research ship, interacting with a humpback, when they decide to get in the water with it and free dive (rather than scuba, since the bubbles disturb the whales). Nevertheless, his description of the water and the whale, well, stuff like that… it’s why I dive. I’ve read this passage several times, and every time my brain has the same thoughtful, provocative response: “Dude. Doooode. Dude.”

“Whereas I had barely been able to see 50 blurry feet into the water from the ship’s deck, I suddenly had a crisp view stretching in every direction for 100 to 150 feet. It was an opalescent universe of borderless blue, gradually dimming toward gray in the distance. And it was empty save for flecks of plankton drifting by. Then I looked past my feet.

The whale was suspended head down with its pectoral fins spread as if frozen in a swan dive, a pose often assumed by singers. Its music came straight through my flesh and played loudly in my bones. I felt strummed. After a while, the melody was replaced by a series of ascending whoops, and the whale came rising from the depths. I don’t recall the exact sequence, but I know that this enormity, this sentient presence with a body about seven times my length and four hundred times my weight, approached very closely, eyeing me, and its passing took an achingly long time, and at one point a pectoral fin swept by inches over my head. I know the whale turned and came directly toward me once more, closing the distance much too fast for me to react. At the last instant, the nose began to pitch slightly down, and the rest of the head followed in an arc that left me four feet above it, awash in whale currents. Again the animal rolled onto a side and looked at me. Then it rolled farther until it was on its back, and the white grooved belly slid on past and away.

Next came another approach straight at me. This time the humpback flared its pectoral fins and braked less than a yard from my face. We floated there nose to nose, scarcely moving. [...] Maybe this is what an interview with God would be like. My mind should have been racing with profound ideas and possibilities, but I don’t think I could have told you my name. I resisted the temptation to reach out and make actual contact. [...] Moments passed, and the interview was over.” (excerpted from pgs. 13-15)