It’s that time of year again – the clocks have sprung forward in the U.S. and the humpbacks are heading north with their young ones to gorge on fattier, cold water fish. So the watch is on. Last year was pretty disappointing in the whale watching category. Just a couple of distant spouts. We got luckier this year. Not of our own accord but because we enlisted the help of friends on island in agreeing to a call pact. If either of us spot whales we are supposed to call the others.
A few days ago, Michael and I were having breakfast around 8AM, and I was doing my seasonal scanning of the horizon when I spotted a few good spouts far off to the south east heading east. That would be heading towards our friends’ house. So, as agreed, I called them. I never saw any more spouts and only received a communication back from Robert asking if I was familiar with a little story about a boy and some false cries of wolf. (That’s what you get sometimes for trying to be helpful.)
Fast forward ahead a few days. I was lying awake in bed trying to let Michael sleep a bit longer when the phone rang. Before I answered, I asked Michael, then awake either from the phone ringing or my asking, what time it was. 6:30A. That meant the odds were that the call was either bad news or a wrong number, but in fact it was these same friends calling to tell us that they had at least two whales spouting southwest of them. They were hesitant to call at first but then felt that I would want them to abide by the agreement. If we couldn’t see the whales from our house, we were welcome to drive out to theirs for some watching. The only request was that I call them back to let them know we were coming so they could ‘throw some clothes on.’ Fair enough.
And that’s what we did. We couldn’t see anything from our vantage point because the sun was just above the horizon and shining straight at us. So we threw some clothes on ourselves, grabbed our binoculars and camera and headed off. By 7AM we were all sitting out by their pool following the spouts and seeing an occasional whale’s back slide through the water far off in the distance. We drank coffee and chatted and hoped they would come closer.
By 7:30A, though, that was still all we were seeing, and the guys decided to drive over to the French bakery for croissants. In all fairness, I said that they didn’t have to walk away from a whale spotting on my account. And my friend told them she had English muffins handy. But they were determined and drove off. Caroline then felt compelled to cut up some fresh fruit to round out the breakfast fare. Luckily her kitchen windows face out to the sea because, as you might predict, shortly thereafter I called out about a big spout and then sure enough the whale breached. – completely out of the water. It was a stunning sight that she did manage to see from the kitchen. And then she breached again. And again. And again. And again. Like a dolphin skimming the surface she breached seven times in total – though understandably with a bit less gusto each subsequent time.
It was amazing and beautiful to watch. Caroline and I were so excited. I didn’t even reach for Michael’s camera at first because I’m not the photographer in the family in the first place and I’m certainly no wildlife photographer under any circumstances. But I ultimately did manage to capture a couple of frames of some of the later breaches so I offer this one as proof of our sighting.
Sadly, even though that whale or another whale breached two more times, the guys missed it all returning with the croissants after all of the commotion with only more opportunities to see an occasional spout. However, we had a lovely breakfast by the pool. And Robert marveled at island life and the fact that back in Boston he would never dream of calling a friend’s house at 6:30A to invite them over for a spur of the moment breakfast.
I, for one, am awfully grateful that he did.
