I love whales so much. I read about them, watch documentaries about them, and listen to podcasts about them.
However, I also am from Carrboro, North Carolina, which is about 3 hours away from the coast. So when my aunt took me and my twin sister to Port Angeles as a graduation present this summer, I was incredibly excited! We decided to go whale watching, for the very first time ever, with Puget Sound Express, which I saw is a part of the Pacific Whale Watch Association (an organization I learned about on your podcast).
They told us it took them a bit of time to find whales the day before, but we’d only been out for maybe 15 minutes when all of a sudden we slowed down and huddled together to see whale blows off in the distance. We got a little closer, and found a group of humpback whales all feeding together!
Those humpbacks were the first whales I got to see, and it was incredible. They all took a breath at around the same time, and we even saw some lunge feeding and turning onto their sides. When they waved their pectoral fins in the air, it was super cute. We had cut the engine off in order to reduce noise pollution and to not stress them out, but in one moment a group of 3 or 4 humpbacks turned and started swimming right towards us!
I know about the distance regulations, but I’m not sure we had much of a choice then. We could only see the tops of their backs, but it gave me a tiny sense of how huge they really are. I think one may have actually gone under the boat, and the other 2-3 passed over by the front. I was over the moon and so, so happy. Eventually we left them in peace at their buffet and headed back to Port Angeles.
The whole time I was keeping my eyes out for orca, because I really, really wanted to see an orca. What I didn’t expect was to see pacific white sided dolphins, but they appeared right as we neared the shore!
They porpoised alongside our boat, just like in Titanic, and seemed super joyful. Our guides told us that their names were unofficially Blueberry and Buckle, after their famous cake they serve on the Puget Sound Express.
Afterwards I climbed up to an outlook area and sat for a while, just searching for an orca. Although I didn’t see one, it was still probably the best day of my entire life.
So, the next day we decided to walk alongside some of the beaches of the Olympic National Park. Ruby beach was gorgeous, and it made me so happy to soak in the sea there, but then we headed to Kalaloch beach. When we reached the sand, another group told us excitedly, “there’s a whale past the rocks!” I instantly shrieked, “what?!” hoping that it was a pod of orcas further offshore that I could finally see.
Instead, I quickly learned it was a humpback calf who was not alive, but had washed ashore. This was really hard for me to process because mere days ago, they could’ve been playing happily alongside their mom.
I know there are lots of reasons why whales die or become stranded, and that maybe scientists could learn more using the whale’s body, so it truly made me feel even more motivated to help mitigate these dangers and protect whales later in my life.
-Lucy Safir
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