Free Willy!

Thinking about: "Whatever it is that pulls the pin, that hurls you past the boundaries of your own life into a brief and total beauty, even for a moment, it is enough." ~J.W.

My sister, her husband, & I went whale-watching at Auke Bay yesterday and had an amazing time. The boat driver's name was "Captain Larry" and he smelled like a week's accumulation of bad tobacco and no showers. Because they picked me up half an hour late, we were the last to board and had the only available seating left: right behind Stinky McStinksalot. My sister and I invariably wound up spending most of the time on the outside decks while my brother-in-law obliviously stayed inside.

So the tour guide began by talking a bit about the wildlife and differences between humpbacks and orcas. For example, did you know that orcas in the wild live up to 90 years old whereas orcas in captivity live less than 10?? It's all fun and games until precious sea mammals die 80 years younger.

The guide told there's only about a 15% chance of seeing orcas on any given day, but then we ended up seeing like 6 of them so I'm wondering if he gives this shpiel all the time so tourists get giddy and overtip when they do show. Regardless, it was incredible to see them. They even got pretty close to the boat. Of course, what everyone on these things really want is to see the whales do something amazing like breach the water and do flips as if such behavior were common and natural because Sea World spoiled us when we were 7. And I'll tell you when they ARE most likely to do something like that: the moment your eye muscles start quivering from staring at your digital camera too long waiting for said event so finally you close your eyes for a moment, relax your hands and let the camera drop to the side. Then bam! The whales just performed a quickly executed Roy Rogers dance number and by the time you get your camera perfectly focused and zoomed to take the picture, all you catch is a little bit of their tail as they dive back beneath the surface. So yeah. That's my story of why I'm about to have 10 photographs of tails in various underwater-return.