A Second Sighting
One Saturday in November when I was forced by winds and currents to go south instead of northeast toward the buoy, I paddled for a couple hours ruminating on how the kids of today allow themselves absolutely no time to think. I blame that on their incessant and unnecessary use of cell phones. Why any parent would allow a young boy or girl to have a cell phone is a mystery to me. They would all claim it is so they can keep in contact with their son or daughter. They probably don’t consider that the cell phone allows those sons and daughters – nay, commands them – to keep in almost constant touch with every one of their friends. It's not uncommon in our beach community to see young kids on skate boards, bicycles, motor scooters, and some even walking while talking on cell phones – completely oblivious to the world around them. There is an old yoga principle that says: if we are not now here in the present moment, then we’re nowhere. These kids spend most of their time being nowhere. Rather than enjoying a beautiful day and the nature God has created around them, they are instead engrossed in discussing nothing but minutiae with some unseen friend on the other end of the electromagnetic radiation emanating from their cell phone. These kids, I thought while paddling my kayak in the ocean, will not only never have an original thought, they will never have any kind of thought because they won’t allow themselves the time to be quiet enough to begin to think. They would rather listen to their own voice or to the voice of an unseen friend on their cell phones, and those voices inevitably are talking without thinking.
Anyway, while pondering this great failing of our youth, I found myself almost back to my beach, but still about three miles off shore when I noticed a group of dolphins jumping excitedly not far from my boat. It is not unusual to see dolphins jumping in pods, but these guys were especially excited about something. I paddled as fast as I could to where the dolphins were on exhibition, and found the source of their excitement – a beautiful, very large Right whale heading south to the calving ground used by that species between November and April each year. Right whales migrate during those months from Cape Cod and the Bay of Fundy south to as far as Sebastian Inlet on Florida’s east coast. To find one in the vast ocean, given that they resemble a very long floating telephone pole, is a real stroke of luck.
When I reached the whale, it was pretty obvious she was more than slightly annoyed by the dolphins who were jumping over her and swimming under and around her and just doing anything they could to disturb her peace. My presence in the area caused the dolphins to disburse, and perhaps in return for the favor the whale allowed me to paddle alongside her for a little more than ten minutes. It was an absolute thrill for me, but at the end of the ten minutes I watched her huge fluke rise almost straight up in the air, and her head slowly begin to submerge; she was diving – but very slowly. She slid under the water as gracefully as a ballerina, and, since I was aware of how long right whales can stay under, I headed back toward my beach. Although this was my second whale sighting, I had now come across three whales in my area of the ocean (there were two Humpbacks when Jim and I witnessed that spectacular show mentioned earlier).
I returned thanking God for creating such splendorous creatures, and feeling sorry for those kids who spend large portions of their lives on cell phones, because chances are they will never find the time to appreciate anything as beautiful as watching a Right whale up close.
(click to enlarge)
