I am the most blessed of dreamers.
For I have finally reached some promised point on the horizon; not where you plateau and live on the surface of your dreams. But rather, where dreams become real, and from within the integral web of a profoundly intricate, simply beautiful life, you give life to them in your every thought, word, and action.
I am immersed in my dreams; they have swallowed me and I live within their boundless spaces. where to begin?
I moved into the “Coffee Shack” about three and a half weeks ago. For the first week, I sort of settled in, but not fully, as I knew the team of whale researchers would be coming on the 15th; at which point the shack turns into the research center; a work station of crunching numbers, photographing squid samples that sit in the sink, downloading GPS waypoints about the island to track where the boat went that day; and analyzing tissue from whales that has been collected via a cross-bow and biopsy arrow! I cannot begin to tell you how exciting this is for me, albeit maybe kind of ridiculous, to look at “whale biologists" as some sort of higher breed of human. But this is the “WORLD” in which I have pictured myself for so long. I have fantasized about these days, during which whales would come up at least 100 times in conversation during each twenty-four hour period.
As I moved in, the main office person, Barb, announced that she was moving to California, and her plane left in only two short weeks. So she trained me, and I have now taken over the office. It’s fun. I wake up in the morning, and either make coffee or walk into the tiny “town” of Holualoa and grab a cup of pure Kona at a quaint little place called the Holuakoa Café. Holualoa is approximately ten miles from Kailua-town (the main “city” area of Kona), and is higher in elevation. It is also exempt from the nearby rain shadow that keeps the area where Star’s beautiful house is so dry. So I am now nestled into a plot of rainforest-y acreage, stuffed with coffee plants, papaya, avocado, fig and banana trees. Not to mention roosters, chickens, wild (feral) cats, and mongoose. Oh, and Koa and Napua, Dan’s German shepherds.
My commute to work involves climbing a crooked set of wooden stairs behind the shack, up to a giant moving container (the container isn't moving...it's a giant BOX the size of a mobile home used to ship people's stuff off-island when they move), which has been turned into the office for both Dan McSweeney’s Whale Watch, and the Wild Whale Research Foundation.
I still can’t believe I WORK HERE. Every time say all of these words in combination, these titles and phrases, see the logos of breaching humpbacks, I have to pinch myself. Although I look forward to the winter (humpback) season, when I will be able to train on the boat (hopefully as a naturalist, not just crew); in the meantime, I am enjoying learning all the aspects of the office job. To be honest, I really like making copies, filing stuff, sending out e-mails, and doing “accounting”. It makes me feel grown up! When I am not busy, (which, this time of year, is most of the time), I go down into another huge “container” that’s been built on the property to house the hundreds of thousands of archived whale photographs the Foundation has accumulated over the years, and uses for photo ID and matching. This is how they keep track of local whale populations, and where the division lines are that make boundaries between them and other populations non-native to the Hawaiian Islands.
While most every other group of scientists in the Hawaiian Islands are here studying humpbacks alone, the WWRF is most interested in the more evasive, lesser seen or known whale populations that inhabit the waters just off-shore. Their main focus has been on short-finned pilot whales, beaked whales, and pseudorca…the false killer whale.
They regularly see these whales in abundance, and on rarer occasions see SPERM WHALES, rough-toothed dolphins, pygmy killer whales, pygmy sperm whales, and even killer whales once in a great while!
Sometime in the fall, a Japanese version of National Geographic television is going to come here and work with Dan on a documentary about swimming with sperm whales. Dan told me today that he’ll need crew for the project, and that I am welcome to be a part of it. He also said that they may need “stunt doubles” to actually do the swimming, and I tried not to let on that the thought of getting that job made me want to pee in my pants and scream with ecstatic craziness! By the way, that is what am doing as write this, in my mind, behind every word…screaming ecstatically and crazily. This is all too good to be true. Yet I know it could be no other way now; nor could it have come to this any other way than it has. I have had unfathomable help and guidance from Mom, and her band of angels on the Other Side! SHE IS SO HERE AND A PART OF EVERY MINUTE OF THIS DREAM PROCESS UNFOLDING AND BECOMING REAL IN THE PHYSICAL PLANE!!!
This time around, the research team was here mainly for the Navy’s RIMPAC (Rim of the Pacific) exercise; wherein they would be “playing” war games in the channel between Maui and the Big Island, all the while using the mid-frequency sonar that (everyone, including the Navy,) knows is responsible for hurting, stranding, and killing thousands of marine animals. They have found beaked whales stranded after these exercises, with nitrogen gas trapped in their blood – the equivalent to the SCUBA diver’s malady known as the bends. These whales dive several thousand feet down. So the theory is that they probably spend time decompressing at various depths, (like humans do), upon ascension; and that when they hear these mind-blowing blasts of sound in their delicate, acoustically-open-nerved environment, they get scared or disoriented, and bolt to the surface too quickly to allow for decompression.
Well, as you may or may not have heard, the NRDC sued the Navy for breaching the tenets of the marine mammal protection act in using this sonar. So they had added “conditions” under which they were ordered to use their sonar this time around. Many people were/are (rightfully) concerned that these are just sort of politically-correct measures, and that they won’t actually change the potential amount of harm that threatens the marine life through the use of this sonar. But the researchers were going to be out here for a couple of weeks, during the RIMPAC exercise, to find signs of distress in whales and dolphins after the big blasts. Strangely – but victoriously (we hope) – the Navy didn’t set off their sonar. The time they were slated to do it came and went, and nothing. It could very well have been because of the pressure put on by environmental groups such as NRDC, and also thanks to the local organizations like the WWRF, and these scientists’ being out there and holding them accountable. It may be a “small” victory; but in this case, any move forward is a huge step!
The scientists were out on the water every single day they were here, getting tissue samples from whales for biopsies, attempting to tag them with VHF radio tags, (at which they were unsuccessful this time around), and just recording encounters and taking tons of photos. I got to go out with them twice, which was unbelievably exciting. I was more an observer and “active watcher” than anything else, but learned a tremendous amount about what they do out there. And also, they have agreed to leave behind one of their big, expensive, fancy digital cameras for me to practice with, so that I can hone my skills at shooting fast-moving, darting, swimming animals! ME! Taking photos of whales!! It is so unreal!!!!! And it gets better…
Yesterday, Dan came into the container and showed me an old Nikonus underwater camera he had found among his older equipment. He is soon expecting an unbelievably expensive underwater digital video camera, so he has sort of passed this classic one on to me…for practice. He has worked on several movies doing underwater lighting and shooting – including The Abyss, Titanic, and one of the James Bond movies. He recently got back from shooting something in the Bahamas starring Halle Berry! I have mentioned to him a couple of times how much I would love to learn underwater photography…and be able to photograph WHALES and DOLPHINS…maybe even make documentaries someday! He has definitely taken note of this. And he talks - as if it is simply a given - about taking me out on the boat to practice shooting photos of whales... UNDERWATER!!!!
The possibilities are as vast as the sea, it seems. And this whole situation is just so incredibly meant to be…so BLESSED…that I thank GOD every single day and night for these tremendous GIFTS.
The researchers have gone, but will return in November – that time for six weeks. In the meantime, I am going to spend the weekend cozy-ing up the Coffee Shack…making it feel more like home. Oh…and not to forget…SWIMMING WITH WHALES!!!
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I return to this entry on Tuesday night. I am bleary-eyed, sleepy. But the coffee shack is looking and feeling wonderfully homey and me-y.
Dan and I were on the water all weekend. We specifically went looking for a group of sperm whales that another captain called to report to Dan. Saturday, we found nothing. Sunday, we didn't find the sperm whales; but we did find pilot whales. TONS of them, in three different groups. While topside, I shot 255 digital photos that day, all of which will become part of the pilot whale photo ID archives. Dan complimented my fin shots, saying that I have great potential in this area!
And yes...I did get to get in with these amazing, beautiful animals, and see their FACES up close. it was unreal. I took a few photos, though I fumbled with the camera, completely awe-struck and frozen with wide-open eyes, breathing heavily through my snorkel. There I was - in the open ocean where the water depth reached thousands of feet - facing an oncoming slow motion parade of whales. This was beyond the cliche, "a dream come true". Five or so pilots swam toward me, drifting by me on my right side, looking at me with gentle, curious and intelligent eyes. I was completely enthralled, which is why - when something "bumped" me rather hard from behind, I didn't (even via reflexes) turn around. I kept shooting photos of the whales, until I guess about 45 seconds to a minute later, when I did turn around...to see a seven foot oceanic white tip shark...staring me in the face with its empty, frightening eyes. I began to panic. I lifted my head from the water to find the boat had drifted a substantial distance. Dan saw what was happening, and remained very calm. He encouraged me to do the same, though it was difficult with the shark beginning to approach even closer now. Dan told me to hold the camera out in front of me, and that if the shark got too close, I should "hit it in the face" with the camera. He told me later that, had I had on fins, (which I didn't that day because I had raced from town to the boat without going home for my snorkel gear the minute Dan called and told me to come to the harbor for this trip), I could have kicked a sort of "territorial circle" around myself, which the shark would supposedly have respected. At any rate, I had no fins, the shark was moving steadily toward me, and I was becoming terrified. I envisioned the beast ripping me in half, right there in the middle of the best day of my life!
All I wanted was to turn and kick like hell to get back to the boat. But Dan said not to let the shark out of my sight, not even for a second. He said, "Keep the shark in your field of vision, and just try and stay calm". I stuck my head back underwater, and watched helplessly as the shark continued moving my way. When it was approximately three feet from me on my right side, it simply turned a slight left...and vanished into the abyss from whence it came.
Once I knew I was safe, the primal fear turned chemically into pure adrenalin. I could not believe what had just happened! When I made it back to the boat, Dan hurriedly pulled me up out of the water by my wrists and said, "Are you okay? Did it 'get' you?" I said, "I don't think so, why?" But as the words came out of my mouth, I looked down to notice that my second toe (next to the big one) on my left foot was bleeding. There were two tiny, razor thin slices that exactly resembled paper cuts, etched across the top of that toe. The shark's teeth had actually made contact with my body. I was "tasted". I was touched by an oceanic white tip shark in the Pacific Ocean.
While this probably should have made me afraid to ever jump in the ocean again, it did just the opposite. It made me realize a couple of things: For one, I am protected. By MOM, other angels...the whales, perhaps. Second, I am blessed for these kinds of spiritual moments in my life. And third, I want nothing more than to spend my life taking photos of whales and other marine life in the wild.
Needless to say, I was dying to know how the photos would turn out! This old Nikonus uses film (what's that?); and I was practicing shooting in black and white. So I actually had to send the roll off to Honolulu just to get processed! It took a week to get it back, only to find out the entire roll had been overexposed. Had it turned out, I would've had photographs of both the whales that enchanted me, and the shark that may have eaten me, had I turned around seconds later than I did.
Another reason to look ahead at taking more pictures. This instance was the catalyst for deeper and more beautiful things.
