Rhapsody in Blue

A fascinating article about whale watching off Santa Barbara from the Los Angeles Times. It concludes:

But a blue it is.

A huge blue. Gently swimming across our bow, it breaks the surface with a head like a Titan rocket. Then more of it follows, and more still. And yet more after that — a vast, undulating grain silo moving through the choppy water, its glistening topside and the great bulk beneath reflecting the daylight and illuminating the dark sea.

Rhythmically, it blows, replenishing oxygen after diving and taking a throat-engorging gulp of krill. The ph-whoosh of its twin blowholes could be the sound of an air leak from deep inside the membrane of the planet.

Then something unexpected happens. The experts and whale-watching veterans start dancing on tiptoes.

Regal and blasé, blues almost always ignore a boat nearby. They surface, breathe for a few moments and vanish again for 10 or 15 minutes at a spell. But this one turns to investigate, slow and wide, in the way a ship would change course.

Now, it is heading for us. Its colossal torso carves waves through the Pacific and churns up a trail of backwash. Gouts of steam jet skyward as it exhales.

The Condor Express is 75 feet long. This whale figures to be 80 feet, some aboard estimate 90 — almost the length of a basketball court.

It comes alongside the starboard rail. A couple of car-lengths pass before a bulging, monstrous eye, still below the surface, glides by. For just an instant, the world of water meets the world above. All those years ago, the grade-school teacher was wrong, wonderfully wrong. The living proof fills you with joy.