Whale Story

It was night, so there was dim, unearthly, diffuse light of a sort. The sky was a low sheet of clouds like a dark, upside-down glacier, held in still place an even one hundred feet above by the marine atmosphere. Below, the sea was black. In between black sea and the sheet of clouds was the horizontal ecotone of life. We were there. Humpbacks were there. Killer whales. A minke whale and a fur seal. Wilson's petrels darted about like swallows.

Our ship had turned around, headed back to where the captain had seen the pod of killer whales circling the humpback baby. Once before he had seen killer whales eat a baby humpback alive. The second time he saw killer whales circling humpbacks, he drove the ship through the group to scatter them. The humpbacks followed the ship twenty miles for safety.

We drew close, all of us gathered on the bow, expecting a blood bath and whale oil slick. Would the killer whales eat the baby? Would the humpbacks get away? We watched. This wasn't a documentary. It was live. The event revealed itself at the slow pace of whales. The killer whales were way too close to the humpbacks. The minke whale came up alone. Two humpbacks turned back to look at the ship. They swam under us, then along side only inches from the hull. A fur seal was overtaking the whales, lifted its head, saw the tall fins of the killer whales and raced for an ice floe to haul out on. At least he was safe.

Ahead, undisturbed by us, the humpbacks dove shallowly and surfaced often. It all looked very leisurely. The killer whales were behind, then amongst them. The humpbacks kept diving shallowly. We counted twenty. They turned, they circled, they dove, they stayed. They were all eating krill.