Conference hydra::dave_barry

1054.0. "Call Me Ismael" by HGOM30::TRINGOC () Mon Jun 02 1997 00:42

    Call Me Ismael
    
    BY DAVE BARRY
    
    I imagine you will want to call me a courageous adventurer when I tell
    you how I recently encountered an actual live whale in person. In fact
    I encountered a group of whales, which is called a ``pod,'' or
    sometimes ``a group of whales.'' 
    
    I encountered this particular pod off the coast of Maui, which is one
    of the major Hawaiian Islands (the other ones are Oahu, The Big Island,
    Kawahoolele, The Medium Island, Kawahalanakanalekaelele, The Other
    Medium Island, Keleleakahanenenenenehawahinenene and Guam). Maui is a
    superb place to go and soak up the wonderful Hawaiian culture at the
    rate of 52,000 calories per day, which is what my wife and I were doing
    when we decided that we'd better go encounter some whales while there
    was still a boat in the Hawaiian Islands capable of carrying our
    weight.
    
    Each winter, a large number, or ``bunch,'' of North Pacific humpback
    whales swim all the way down to Maui from Alaska, a distance of
    thousands of miles. Why do they make this difficult journey? For the
    same reason that athletes compete, and actors perform, and singers
    sing, and politicians run for high office: They want to have sex. There
    is wild whale sex going on in the water around Maui, accompanied by an
    underwater soundtrack of cool, space-like whale noises, including a
    song that the males sing to attract the females. The fascinating thing
    is, all the male humpback whales sing the same song: My Way.
    
    No, I'm kidding. If they sang that, the females would deliberately
    beach themselves. But the male whales really do all sing the same song,
    and it changes from time to time, and all the males, all over the
    world, somehow learn the changes (maybe they're on the Internet).
    Evidently the song is effective, because a lot of mating goes on around
    Maui. Afterward, the male whale swims off in a carefree manner, leaving
    the female to be pregnant for a year, at the end of which she gives
    birth, all alone, without anesthetic, to a baby whale the size of a
    Toyota Corolla. If, during the birth, the male happens to swim past,
    singing his song, Mr. Stud of the Sea, I bet the female gives him a
    good whack with her 15-foot pectoral fin.
    
    But the real threat to whales is whaling, which has endangered many
    whale species. This is why I say to young people: If you're ever in
    school or at the mall, and somebody in your peer group whispers to you,
    ``Pssst . . . Wanna go whaling?'' you should ``just say no.'' Also you
    should tell your congressperson that you favor the 30-day cooling-off
    period on the purchase of harpoons. Or you can support the Pacific
    Whale Foundation (101 North Kihei Rd., Kihei, Maui, HI 96753), which is
    the nonprofit outfit that operates the boat that took us
    whale-watching.
    
    I will admit that I was a teensy bit nervous about boating in
    whale-intensive waters, because of my memories of Moby Dick, which is
    about Captain Ahab, played in the movie by Gregory Peck, who looks just
    like Abraham Lincoln but with fewer legs. Ahab wants to kill this giant
    white whale, played in the movie by Marlon Brando, but in the end
    Marlon tips over the entire boat and everybody dies except the
    narrator. (In high school, when I had to read Moby Dick, which is 87
    million pages long, I found myself wishing that the narrator had also
    died.)
    
    But we boldly set out on the Pacific Whale Foundation boat, along with
    about 15 other tourists (also known as a ``waist-pack'' of tourists)
    and started looking for humpback whales. You'd think they'd be easy to
    find, being as how they weigh up to 80,000 pounds -- more than Edward
    Kennedy and Newt Gingrich combined -- but for a while we didn't see
    anything. And then, after almost an hour, people started shouting, and
    I looked out where they were pointing, and I saw -- this was one of the
    most unforgettable moments of my life -- nothing. I'm one of those
    people who, when there's a major natural spectacle that everybody else
    can see, I can't see it. I would not have seen Halley's Comet if it had
    passed through my living room.
    
    But finally, after several anxious minutes of scanning the ocean, I
    heard a loud whooshing noise and saw a big puff go shooting into the
    air, and suddenly, there it was, in plain view: Old Faithful!
    
    No, it was a whale, and it was very large. And then there were more
    puffs, and more whales, forming a four-whale pod consisting of a
    mother, her baby and two male ``escort'' whales who were trying to get
    the female's attention, probably sweet-talking her in whale language
    (``Are those barnacles new? They look terrific!'').
    
    The whales swam slowly, gracefully, past our boat for several minutes,
    surfacing, puffing, diving, surfacing. They came pretty close to us,
    but it was never scary; it was -- and here I will quote Herman Melville
    -- very cool. We could have watched the whales for hours, but before
    long we had to leave. For just as the humpbacks would soon be returning
    to the Alaskan feeding grounds -- where they eat up to a ton of raw
    fish per day -- so did we have to get back to the hotel for dinner. We
    had sushi, but nowhere near a ton. At least not apiece.
    
    http://www.herald.com/tropic/barry/archive/june1.htm