A Whale of a Time

Life has a way of screaming at you to pay attention. Particularly while dreamily conversing on a boat bound for a halibut fishing hole, sipping a beer, chuckling at a goofy looking otter tracking your progress as it reclines on its back. Seriously, while surrounded by mountains, facing a frigid headstrong wind, it is easy to miss the awe inspiring.
Which is why you need life to snap you out of it with an otherworldly scream. It is a sound of which never heard before and probably never again that trumpets the emergence of a whale across the bow of the boat, not 10 feet from where you sit. There is a moment of exhilaration followed by terror that it will capsize the boat. The captain cuts the motor and runs from the cabin screaming that is as close as he’s ever come to hitting one. As he lights a cigarette to relieve the tension, you run around the starboard side of the boat laughing hysterically as you look on the poor soul who took the brunt of the snot that had just erupted from the great beast’s blowhole.
Now it can’t be said the obsession become Ahabian, but for the next half hour the passengers of the boat relentlessly scan the Kachemak Bay waters for more whales who oblige by cresting all around, blowholes spouting, tails flopping, though now at a much safer distance.
As the boat resumes its trip out to sea, you sit hyper-aware of the puffins and seagulls that fly all around and ponder the moment you already know will be with you for the rest of your life. You sit and wish your camera’s battery hadn’t given out a few minutes before and begin thinking about purchasing life insurance, probably from Pacific Life.