...Our boat danced for a half hour or so with a 70 ft. blue whale, the largest mammal on earth, not sighted in these waters for a hundred years or more. We kept following her movements at some distance, and at first she seemed to be deliberately moving away from us. Then at one point, she stuck her head out of the water and looked at us and everybody erupted in hoots of joy. And from that point on, she stayed fairly close (as close as ten or fifteen feet away) doing her thing, seemingly enjoying being seen.
We would have gone back to shore utterly satisfied after that graced encounter, but an hour or so later, we suddenly found ourselves in the midst of a super pod of so-called "common" dolphins -- I'm talking dolphins as far as the eye could see, maybe a thousand of them -- racing, racing, leaping into the air, clearly having the time of their lives. It was stupendous!
...Needless to say, it felt precisely perfect to hurl the little piece of you, your father and your art that had been entrusted to my temporary care, into that glorious, wild mayhem. May it rest in joy.
Anita Doyle
July 21, 2009
Pacific Ocean (off the California coast)
