In April this year a sperm whale appeared in Oban Bay and remained there for nine days, long enough for word to spread and various experts to pronounce. That it wasn’t set upon, tortured and speared to death, as would have been the case not so long ago, surely marks a sea-change in human sensibility. On the contrary, if anyone had harassed the creature, well, they’d have been the one flensed.
I happened to be passing through Oban en route to Mull so I joined the small group assembled behind the pizza parlour and public toilets on the pier. Fishing boats were tied up, and across the bay the island of Kerrera lay in the first spring sunshine. The whale had chosen a spot just outside the Kerrera marina, so it was in full view, and its behaviour was predictable. Every 45 minutes or so it surfaced for a couple of minutes, blew, then dived again. The group I joined consisted in Easter holidaymakers, workmen in overalls and an elderly lady perched elegantly on a capstan, who perhaps knew this would be her only chance to see a great whale. Or maybe she’d seen hundreds and was coming back for more. They are a bit addictive. Some people preferred to gaze over the water in silence as they waited, others were inclined to show off their knowledge. I overheard phrases: ‘When we were in New Zealand,’ ‘When we were in Cape Town.’ ‘Of course, sperm whales are usually well out into the Atlantic.’
It’s true that sperm whales are deep-sea animals and it’s highly unusual to have one arrive, as it were, on the doorstep. Local newspapers kept up reports but thankfully didn’t give the whale a silly name. The creature might have been resting following an injury or illness; it didn’t seem unduly stressed. It was echo-locating nicely and knew its own situation. The best policy was simply to leave it alone. The alternative would have been to try to shoo it back out to sea, but how do you shoo a whale? The attitude that arose was part protective, part laissez-faire. CalMac diverted their ferries around the beast’s haunt, people came and went on the pier, and the whale remained in the bay until the next very high tide, when, buoyed by the extra water, it swam away.
I didn’t see the whale from the pier. I had to leave for the ferry before it appeared but the ferry terminal windows overlook the same waters so I kept an eye out while queuing to board. Then there it was! Like a range of low grey hills, with sunlight gleaming on its flanks. A sperm whale! In Oban Bay! Having surfaced it sent up a satisfying bush of spray two or three times. I couldn’t contain myself. ‘Look!’ I said to the woman next to me. ‘Look! There’s that whale!’ But she didn’t look. She just turned away, saying: ‘I am not a whale watcher, thank you.’ (...)
Barely a ‘nature book’ is published today without homage to J.A. Baker, or Gilbert White, or stern collectors like the 18th-century surgeon John Hunter, who dissected everything, including any hapless whale that wandered into the Thames. Much is fresh, though. When we reach New Zealand, the discussion turns to the relationship between the Maori and whales. And the Moa, the giant, now extinct, bird. And Te Pehi Kupe, a warrior richly adorned with facial tattoos, who in 1824 blagged a lift to Liverpool on a merchant ship. It’s testament to Hoare’s skill as a writer and companion that his work, a crammed treasure chest, doesn’t irritate. He isn’t a show-off. In The Sea Inside, you can go with the flow.
All the lore and wonders are fascinating, but in New Zealand, as in the Azores, as in Provincetown, it’s the cetaceans who steal the show. It’s just typical of us as a species to invent the exploding harpoon long before we came up with scuba-diving gear. Now, though, it’s possible to swim among dolphins and whales. What they think of it we can only speculate, but it’s certainly not the worst thing we’ve done to them. The book’s most original sections are Hoare’s accounts of doing just that, diving with whales, an experience he calls ‘truly dreamlike’. In the Azores, he swims among a pod of sperm whales. Despite their size, the animals flit from view. ‘Like birds that vanish in mid-air, they seem to disappear in the sea. It’s an impossible feat of prestidigitation. Over the waves I can see the whale, quite clearly close; under the water, nothing. Then suddenly there it is – a big beautiful animal held in the surf, stilled within the surge as I am flailing.’ He says later: ‘Nothing else matters. I feel nothing bad can happen if I’m with a whale. As if its grey mass insures against all the other evils.’
In New Zealand, it’s dusky dolphins, a super-pod of at least two hundred. He is in the water.
I look round and see dozens of dolphins heading straight at me, like a herd of buffalo. For a moment I think they are going to swim right into me. A ridiculous notion. They, like the whales, register my every move, my every dimension, both inside and out, my density, my temperature, what I am and what I am not. A dolphin’s sonar, which can fire off two thousand clicks a second, is able to discern something the thickness of a fingernail from thirty feet away. At the last minute the animals swerve aside, under my legs, by my side, past my head … I feel the sensual power of their bodies as they race past.I wonder if it was this cetacean sensuality the Oban woman registered and refused.
by Kathleen Jamie, LRB | Read more:
Image: Austral International via:
