July blogathon #12: Where Would I Be If I Was Not Here?

[anghara]

When I was asking about topics for this series of blogs, one of the first suggestions that came up was vylar_kaftan's contribution - to tell about an alternate life I might have led (or wished to lead), something that I might have wished to do with my life if I had not set my feet on this writing path so long ago

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[kehrli]

When I went to Mexico with my family (between leaving Bellingham and arriving in Seattle), my parents decided we should all do one shore excursion together, and picked one that basically consisted of going out to some islands on a smaller boat, risking intestinal disease by drinking mixed drinks with local ice, and snorkling in salt water, which burns like hell if you get it up your nose.

My parents and brother missed all the best things.

See, they had already turned back when, all alone (well, okay, I was maybe 50 feet from the boats, but nobody was nearby), I saw rays soar by under me.

But worse, they stayed behind when the guides offered to land some of us on the island if we wanted.

We'd seen plenty of humpback whales -- that's where they go during the winter to have sex and babies.

I was the only one who was willing to chug my margarita (because you were not allowed to bring alcohol on the teeny skiffs that they were using to bring us TO the island) and I wanted to go see what the beach looked like. We went to this tiny beach on a tiny island in the middle of the bay. The surf, even on the land-ward side of the island, was maybe three feet tall, and the beach was all smooth pebbles instead of sand.

There were two boats-worth of people on the beach. I was in the second group to leave -- the group that had to dig the little 20-foot boat out of the beach in order to leave. The first group went straight back to the larger boat.

Once we -- the second group -- were in the boat, our guides went the other way around the island than we'd taken to get there. This was utterly unplanned. Of the entire tour, there were only the last eight people on the island, and two guides on that boat.

And there were two humpback whales, playing. The guides killed the motor and we just rocked on the swells, and the whales were so close we could almost have touched them if we'd leaned over the side. So close that I could see the drops of water glistening around the twin blowholes -- because whales have two nostrils.

The entire boat, all ten of us, were absolutely silent. I may not have taken a single breath in the five minutes we watched them, swimming under us, rolling, breaching, flapping their utterly unique flukes.

If I forget everything else, I always want to remember the sight of a whale breaching right next to the boat, so enormous and so beautiful that for those few seconds it was free of the water, it was the only thing in the entire world.

[anghara]

"If I forget everything else, I always want to remember the sight of a whale breaching right next to the boat, so enormous and so beautiful that for those few seconds it was free of the water, it was the only thing in the entire world."

I can believe it. I am deeply envious and awed...