Captain Dan McSweeney

 

I saw a whale once. Two whales, actually. A mother and her child.

It happened during my Honeymoon in Hawaii while spending time on the Island of Kauai.

Kauai is lush in a way that doesn’t seem real to a New England girl like me. Green and full and rich. Humid. Flamingos stroll through the lobbies of the hotels. There are fresh orchids on the pillows. Fire dancers clamber up rock walls with torches.

I can see whales breaching from the veranda of the room. Their tales poke out of the chop of the turquoise. Sprinklers soar into the sky. Arched backs cut through the waves.

I had become SCUBA certified through Atlantic Divers in Rockport, Massachusetts a while before the trip and am excited to dive in warm water again. I like some of the diving that I do in New England, but even with a dry suit on, I always feel cold.

I don’t remember much of my first dive that day, probably because I was distracted by the sound of the whales under water. Our dive master told us that the Humpbacks were just arriving from Alaska. Hawaii was their warm weather destination, too. The dive master told us lots of stuff, actually, but I don’t remember any of it.

I just remember the whales singing.

We toodle along to the next dive site. As I warm up and stretch out on the deck of the boat, the dive master points out whales breaching and flipping all around us. It is spectacular. I can’t comprehend how huge their bodies must be. I can’t get a sense of their size from just a fin. From the bow of their tails.

The water feels warm when I jump back in and once I reach depth, I lazy-kick around in the current looking at the bright coral. The angelfish. Anemones from another planet.

I am distracted and looking down. Then, everything gets dark.

I am not being dramatic or hyperbolic.

Picture a cloud suddenly blocking the sun on a day of only blue sky.

I look up to see Tim swimming frantically towards me. I’m suddenly terrified that something is wrong. Tim can live under water. He stays down longer than any diver I’ve ever seen. And he’s calm. Always.

So, to see him swimming at me raises every alarm in my body. He grabs my dive suit and points up to the surface. I raise my head and look towards the sky.

There. Right there. Not 50 feet from me. A mother Humpback and her baby.

They travel above me for, maybe, 10 seconds. And then, with one single swish of their tails, they are gone.

I’m sure you can imagine what went on in the boat after I surfaced. I am ecstatic. I have just seen God. How else can I possibly explain to you the largeness of that gorgeous animal?

It is a steam engine floating in the middle of the air.

It is impossible.

For something of that size to simply vanish with such speed? With just one tail stroke? To share space with me?

It is grace.

It is love.

I can see it right now. As I sit at my desk writing and looking out the window at a blowing New Hampshire spring, I can see the whale and her child.

And knowing they are out there reminds me that there is magic.