A Whale Watching

The reputation of the great white shark being what it is, a low-grade panic is the scuba diver’s constant companion. When I’m diving, I am constantly on watch: I can never quite forget that divers resemble seals, among the favorite hors d’oeuvres of empty-eyed marine predators such as sharks and killer whales.

One morning, at a favorite diving spot just north of Santa Barbara, I was standing on the bottom checking out Naples Reef, a rocky formation teeming with fish that lies 50 feet under the Santa Barbara Channel. I was greatly enjoying the abundant marine life despite my strong awareness of both sharks and my watch (below 33 feet, the bends becomes a danger if a diver stays down too long). Suddenly, sure something was behind me, I turned to look.

And almost swallowed my regulator. Right there was a huge, dark-brown eye, and behind it was a 40-foot whale. My heart thudding, I retreated a few feet, nearly certain that gray whales don’t eat seals, that they are filter feeders and strain plankton and such through their teeth. A curious calm replaced the fear.

One difference between animals and people is in their attention spans; an animal’s look quickly turns to a stare. But people watch. Seals, especially the young ones, will see a diver and streak over to look. And they love to play, to strafe divers and nip at flippers and tug air hoses from behind. But they are impatient, and flighty; if a diver isn’t food or fun, they’re gone.

So I know when animals stare. This was different. I don’t think that I’m romanticizing the incident, and I wasn’t deep enough for nitrogen narcosis, but I felt an overwhelming sense that this gray whale was not a something; it was a someone. It wasn’t staring; it was watching. It was as though the large, dark eye mounted in the side of the head was a porthole and someone was sitting behind it. Like the driver, maybe.

What I felt coming from that gray whale was an overwhelming sense of intelligence. The whale didn’t just stare like a seal, nor did it get bored and dart off. It stayed, and I stayed. We remained this way, taking each other’s measure, for some time. After a minute, I reached for it. It backed away a bit, just out of reach, but it stayed. It watched; it noticed; it perceived; it considered. I tried to do the same, but it was too big and too close--I couldn’t see very much of it.

The whale floated serenely and patiently, while I, with my limited view, began to grow impatient, bored. I was also aware that my bottom time and my air were running short. I had decided that the whale had no desire to filter me, but I was afraid that as it swam away it would swat me with that 747 tail and bounce me over Naples Reef. So I waited uneasily while the whale just floated there, that huge, dark eye somber and unblinking. Watching.

After four or five minutes, it flapped its great tail and, bending like a freight train, circled me, that melancholy eye coming very close. I reached out then, my rubber-covered fingers now sliding along the resilient gray flesh, now being lifted by a jagged barnacle. As the whale moved away, the swell of water rolling off its flapping tail raised a cloud of silt and gently lifted me from the bottom, thrusting me back.

With an aching sense of lost opportunity, I tried to remember my California gray whale lore: They winter in the Arctic and summer in Baja, where they mate and calve; they travel in a long line--in small groups, in couples or alone; they stay close to shore.

When I was sure the whale was gone, I went back to exploring the reef, though half-heartedly, distracted, wondering. What else did I know? Near extinction at the turn of the century, they are one of the few federally protected species to have recovered--they now number more than 18,000. They have become relatively trusting--even gregarious. They will surface and hold their massive heads out of the water, seeming to watch their watchers (though Jacques-Yves Cousteau says this position simply helps them swallow their food). I kept looking over my shoulder. After about 10 minutes, there it was again, right behind me.

What I felt then was that the whale wanted to watch what I was doing without my knowing. It was interested. But I was frustrated. I tried to think. They navigate by a kind of sonar, and they make other noises, some in patterns that resemble conversations. They have massive brains, and they are considered to be highly intelligent. But since I couldn’t ask it any questions (I can’t sing), and since it evidently wasn’t going to do anything more engrossing than watch me, I decided that I might as well let it. So I continued exploring, though when there’s a huge eye looking over one’s shoulder, everyday underwater things like little fish, anemones and sea urchins seem to lose their grip on one’s imagination. When I next looked up, it was gone.

When the gray whales migrate south along the Pacific Coast and through the Santa Barbara Channel on the way to Baja, or when they bull their way back through the Bering Strait, do you suppose they look forward to the whale-watching boats? Do you suppose the mommy and daddy whales say to their children, “Watch the people. Don’t get too close! . . . Yes, they are mammals just like us, but they’re not as gentle as we are. . . . No, they’re not as smart as we are; their brains are too small. . . . Yes, that’s why they don’t stay in the water all the time. . . . No, they won’t understand you. . . . Yes, maybe someday we’ll be able to sing to them.”