Sometimes Mother Nature rolls over on her back and asks you to scratch her belly, or maybe just gawk at the scene before you. The thrill of small visual gifts is highlighted if you hold low expectations of anything happening. Maybe if I watched more TV and Youtube features of goats on steep cliffs, lions and crocodiles doing a tug-a-war with a buffalo calf, or cats and cucumbers I wouldn’t be as astounded when something remarkable happens. This happened on a boat.
Now it is kind of a motorhead thing, and maybe more common with guys than gals, but getting a big outboard up on plane, tuning the trim, getting the bow just right for the water and finding the droning sweet spot of the new 4-stroke engines is satisfying and I should have been satisfied with the glassy smooth water, wispy fog through the conifer-clad hillsides and the utter absence of other boaters way down a wilderness fjord near our Vancouver home. However, as we coasted to a silent stop in a scenic cove, the four professional women in the back were more interested in the aesthetic of quiet conversation, wine glasses in hand. The dog was politely obsessed with rounding up errant cheese and cracker crumbs and staring at the water (Labrador you know). Talk filtered around. work, kids, plans. It was their catch-up time and as captain, I hung back in the cabin with the maps. That was when nature kinda struck.
A meter-tall black dorsal fin sliced the water ½ a boat-length away and I recoiled with an involuntary blurt: “Orcas!”. This triggered all sorts of FoFoP (Flight or Flee or Phone) activity. Videos were activated, crackers dropped and there were a half dozen “OMG”s which could stand for “Old Man Gawking”. My wife started hyperventilating. She always does that when surprised by a snake, spider, or her frequent near-death car maneuvers.
Although I am a wildlife biologist, I know less about cetaceans (dolphins, porpoises and Orcas) than many self-educated observers. Those keeners have told me there are two groups of Orcas in our area; the local salmon specialists and the transient seal and otter specialists. Since there is no salmon run up here right now, I had to presume these were mammal eaters and I was glad the dog wasn’t swimming around when they surfaced though it would have been a hell of a fine way to go!
The pair of black and white submarine ghosts took a good look at us, probably determined we were not seals sitting on a silver rock, then they continued up the strait at a steady pace until they weren’t. The larger of the two blew a big breath, arched high and disappeared for a minute. Then, as if queued, the gulls began dipping down and picking up errant bits of flesh. Seal flesh. The pair continued on up the shoreline and did this again, and the gulls did clean-up. We respected the 400 meter observer distance but these marine killers didn’t seem to mind and I don’t think our idling along behind hindered their hunting one bit.
Maybe the rock fish, salmon and skipjack will get a little break by having the seals cleaned out this year. The day wasn’t over yet though. We headed for home and saw plenty of seals remaining close to shore or up on the rocks and then to our surprise, a large brown sea lion with swooping whiskers took off in front of us at great speed. Another rare siting this far inland. It seems something is going on here. What next? Sea otters? Great White Sharks? Jaques Cousteau?
As we meandered back home, purring along on plane and grooving on the calmness, well, me anyway, I vowed to record this event because it all seemed rather ethereal to the point of wondering if I had actually seen what I saw.
What is the message here? Of course there is the un-gentlemanly one-upmanship that birding, safaris and whale-watching seem to generate as in “We saw this and you didn’t, nah nah boo boo!”. It is almost as if the nature voyeur thinks they can personally be elevated by standing in the presence of natural greatness. However, that is unsatisfying for everyone and diminishes the viewer, so I dug a little deeper.
Maybe my take-home from this was that if we are going to be awed, we have to put a little something into it. As A. H. Glaswo said “Success isn’t a result of spontaneous combustion. You must set yourself on fire.” There is plenty to see on digital media whether real, digitally enhanced (I am still pissed at being briefly tricked by the fake tiger in Life of Pi), Anime, or animation but you are being served someone else’s creations. If we are to really own an experience, maybe it is best that it not be secondhand, vicarious, common or cheaply gotten. Scarcity adds value — this is a basis of both the field of economics as well as mental framing. I don’t really expect to have more than a couple of up-close whale experiences in my life even if I am lucky, thus scarcity, thus, valued.
Now how do we increase the encounter rate with remarkable bits of nature — think hailstones the size of ping pong balls, 20-meter waves, large predators hunting, bighorn sheep bashing heads, the cacophony of the 17-year locusts, safely viewing a tornado, or strange sea creature encounters? First off, we have to get out there into the places where such things could happen, and secondly, we need to know they are not predictable, rather, they are occasional gifts of good fortune. Maybe stop in at Nebraska’s Platte River during the Sandhill Crane migration; do a little storm-chasing; find a salmon stream during migration; stand at a cave mouth during the 10,000 bat fly-out each evening; or maybe hire a jungle nature guide who can help put you quickly in the path of bird and insect phenomena or any sorts of snorkeling, scuba or ocean viewing.
And while you are at it, think a little bit about what is needed to ensure that your great-great grandchildren can have a crack at the same inspiration and awe-some responses after you are gone. Yeah, there are some messages to us and such gifts don’t come without sacrifice before and costs afterward. Happy to pay. Happy to pay!
