Midnight Mutterings | Whales!

||| MIDNIGHT MUTTERINGS BY JACKIE BATES |||

A couple of weeks ago I was off island when the Orcas came through Obstruction Pass, and my neighbors gave excited reports of a small group that included two youngsters who traveled west right in front of our houses on the beach.

I have seen a lot of whales, more than my share for sure: Humpbacks on my recent visit (and previous trips) to Glacier Bay, Alaska, Orcas and Humpbacks viewed from the Alaska State Ferry, Grey Whales in Magdalena Bay on the west coast of Baja, who brought their babies to the sides of our pangas so we could touch them. (We were told the Greys like the sounds and/or vibrations of the small outboards rather than the humans, but still…) Minkes on the west coast of Norway, where they are still hunted by Norwegians. I’ve seen Humpbacks while standing on a Maui beach as well as from the shores the Queen Charlotte Islands in Canada, and I saw Minkes and Orcas in Antarctica. I’ve seen Orcas from the ferries in the gorgeous waters around the San Juan Islands and once from the ferry to Port Townsend.

Three decades ago I was on the mail boat Puffin, on the way to Waldron Island for a job interview, along with the other candidates, when our driver spotted Orcas in the distance. Tony cut the engine and the three adults and one baby came to our boat, then one-by-one turned on their right sides, looked straight into our eyes and went under the boat.  Out the other side, they lined up side-by-side again and headed back north. Once, years later, I asked Tony if that ever happened again when he was doing his three-time-a-week mail run. “Never again,” Tony declared. But Tony has a generous heart, and he may have thought that was what I wanted to hear.

Once a whale passed so close my house at Obstruction Pass that a visitor was able to get a good enough photograph that I was able to identify the Minke I hadn’t seen for myself.

OK, that was braggy and boring, though I’ve yet to see a Blue and I would dearly love to see a Right Whale with its snarly mouth full of baleen. (I have read, possibly from Farley Mowat, that the Right Whale got its name as the right whale for hunters to catch because it swims so slowly.) Then there is the long, slender Sei whale I’ve never seen either. I have seen Belugas, baby and grandparents, when they were in the Vancouver Aquarium years ago, along with performing Orcas, but have never seen them in the wild. Nor the Narwhal, a living unicorn with its extended eyetooth, except as skeletons in museums.

However, this column is about the one time in thirty plus years I DID see Orcas from my house at Obstruction Pass.

First a bit of backstory: My neighbor Betty–I’ve changed her name here even though she died some time ago–often said she saw Orcas every night at nine o’clock. When pressed, as none of the others of us had seen them, she admitted, “Well, not, every night, but most nights.” And when she didn’t see them at nine o’clock, she heard them at least. Betty had a flexible relationship with fact in general, at least as the rest of us saw it, but she was firm about her whale sightings, and we knew to be tolerant, if privately skeptical.

It was May 8, 2004, when I was the sole marm at the Stewart Island School and had brought the older kids of the tiny class of K-8 students to Orcas for a field trip of sorts. (Electricity, indoor flushing toilets, ice cream in the freezer, many kinds of ice cream in the Island Market freezer, the Laundromat —that sort of cultural exchange.) The students stayed in my house on the beach and I slept in a small cabin nearby. In the morning I came to where they were to cook breakfast.

Just as I came up the steps I heard a sound from the water. ‘Sounds like whales,’ I thought, ‘must be a boat.’ I looked anyway. There, coming east in the channel between Obstruction Island and Orcas Island were four beautiful, shining black fins, moving fast. I ducked inside the house to tell the kids to look out the window. Just when the kids finally decided to look, the Orcas turned south and headed southeast between Obstruction Island and Deer Point. Out to sea. Whales!!

Of course the students weren’t much interested and inquired about breakfast: What and when? At that point in time, whales passed by Stuart Island’s Turn Point daily, right on schedule. All you had to do to see Orca Whales from Stuart Island was to show up at the appointed time. (I’ll have to ask if that’s still true.)

After breakfast I phoned Betty. (The kids WERE interested in the landline phone.) Betty answered right away.
Me: (Very excited!) Did you see the whales?!?
Betty: (Calmly.) Yes, of course.
Me: (Still excited!) Wow! Four Orcas! Right here! In front of my house! Four!
Betty: (Long pause. Then quietly.) Eight.