Today’s trip was simply incredible, but in a subtle way. We saw a few hundred Risso’s Dolphin, and we saw a handful of whales. No breaches, no backflips. Just honest good looks, and a lot of Mastery in Captain Danny’s orchestration of the trip. At one point, a small child shouted out to a humpback, “Hey Whale! What’s your name?” Everyone laughed. I smiled, and said, “Let me show you what they sound like…” So I pulled out my phone, and pulled up a recording of humpback song and played it over the speakers. Just as the people started to embrace the moment of awe, Captain Danny deftly killed the engines, leaving us all in a calm moment of silence cut by the whoops and wails of the humpback voices, as well as the live action breathing sounds from the actual whales (right next to the boat). Then, I slowly faded the whale song out, and the sense of awe was palpable amongst the passengers, listening to them breathe, watching them move… Finally, it was time to go. Without warning, we simply started to slowly pull away from the whales, and slowly gained speed with the whales behind us. All at once, without influence, every single passenger on the boat started clapping, evolving into thunderous applause of their own volition. Everyone then simply sat down, looked to Danny and myself, and said, “That was incredible.” No gimmicks. No breaches. Just good whales, good weather, and good crew 😉 But to me, the star of the show, was a young man (10 years old?) named Jameson. At the beginning of the trip, I caught the young gentleman checking out our book (Marine Mammals of the World). I told him, “You know, that book got me this job. Read up, and you just might do this for a living some day.” He looked at me with determination, and went straight to reading. I chuckled, and walked away. 30 minutes later, as we approached a pod of Risso’s Dolphin, I waited a few minutes to tell the passengers the name of the species (preferring to let the animals introduce themselves). Right away, Jameson shouts, “Risso’s Dolphin.” I looked at him, stunned, and asked, “How did you know?” He looked at me like I was a fool, and said, “Big dorsal fin. Covered in scars. It’s in the book.” Now, he didn’t SAY, “duh,” but it sure as heck FELT like he wanted to. Needless to say, it put a giant smile in my face, and half the passengers had a good laugh. Very impressive, young mister Jameson. Keep it up, and good luck out there.
–Naturalist Isaiah
