When one of the largest animals in the world surfaces within two feet of my kyak, and people scream from the upper deck of a nearby Santa Barbara, California whale- watching boat, “Watch out, you’re going to be capsized,” a normal reaction would be to paddle away from there as fast as humanly possible.
Instead, I rest my oar on my lap and smile widely to the well-meaning crowd. I don’t want to miss this close encounter with a whale.
If this were a month earlier I wouldn’t have been this relaxed. But I’ve just returned from three days surrounded by gray whales in Mexico, and I’m now confident the 40-ton animal swimming next to me has no interest in capsizing my tiny kyak.
“Other animals sometimes seem to recognize in us a kind of kindred consciousness that we often fail to recognize in them.” From the book Beyond Words by Carl Safina.
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I want to touch a whale. That had been on my bucket list for as long as I can remember.
When I finally realized that wish I was feeling stuck and unhappy in a marriage that wasn’t working for either of us.
Being in Nature is always my antidote for big life issues. And my marital situation qualified.
So I took a trip to meet whales in Mexico.
On my first night there, tucked in a canvas tent, on the moon-scape sandy edge of San Ignacio lagoon, I lay awake for hours excitedly listening to hundreds of whales breaching and slapping the water with their flukes. What are they saying to each other? What are they saying to me?
In the morning our panga driver motors five tourists, me, and Chris, our naturalist guide, around the lagoon hoping for an ‘encounter.’
Every year gray whales migrate south from their feeding areas in the frigid waters of the Bering and Chukchi Seas, to mate and give birth in the relatively calm warm water ‘nursery’ of Magdalena Bay in Baja California and this place, San Ignacio lagoon in Mexico. Their 10,000-mile round-trip journey is the longest migration of any mammal.
Salty spray sprinkles our faces as we bounce over the waves. “There,” Chris points to a ‘footprint’, a smooth oval shape created when whales propel themselves deeper underwater. Our driver idles the engine, an invitation that we are available for a visit if and when the whales are ready.
We lean over the side of the boat to slap the surface of the water. “It calls the whales in,” Chris tells us. “They are very curious beings.” As I slap, I’m silently begging the whales: Pick our boat. We’re friendly. We love you.
Within minutes an animal the length of our skiff appears just below the surface a few feet away.
It’s a baby.
I stretch out over the side of the boat, reaching, reaching, reaching. Then mom swims under and lifts her baby so the top curve of its spine is out of the water and I make skin to skin contact. Slowly I glide my hand across the rubbery soft dark gray skin, trying to avoid the mottled white patches of sharply edged barnacles that have taken up permanent residence.
Time stands still.
Then the baby swims out of the way as the 40-foot long mother maneuvers sideways until I am looking straight into her left eye. As I write this I can feel the tears wanting to flow again. I remember ‘knowing’ something I did not then ‘understand.’ This female whale is initiating contact with us humans. Every cell in my body can feel her connecting to me.
In her presence, I sense a vast pool of peacefulness, understanding and wisdom. She knows things I can never know – about the planet – about the earth, about her water world, and about me.
I feel completely present and ‘in the moment’ and as if I am enveloped by the purest love I have ever known.
For the next three days, each time I ‘meet’ a whale I feel as if I’m being blessed by an ancient soul. As if I am in a loving mothers womb, protected and supported. Each encounter leaves me clearer and stronger.
When I return home to Santa Barbara it is those whales that continue, during the following year, to give me the courage and fortitude needed to finalize my divorce.
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If touching whales is on your bucket list, January through April are the best months to go. There are many tour operators you can use, or you can plan it on your own. San Ignacio Lagoon and Magdalena Bay are the top two spots for touching whales. But be warned, touching whales may drastically change your life.
LvL
*Photos by Chris Peterson
11 Replies to “How Touching Whales Helped Me Get A Divorce”
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Thank you. I was blessed to be there, to see the peace in your eyes, and feel the calm of your heart.
As I was writing this post I was hoping you would see it. You were the best guide for that life-changing experience. Thank YOU!
BTW, thanks for the photos. I found them recently which prompted me to write this story.
You have relayed your experience exquisitely.
I must now touch a whale (no divorce prompted this).
Oh Lori – I just love this sweet inspirational story! I could feel your excitement and the love thru every sentence … XOX
Thank you Josee. I am glad to hear “no divorce prompted this.” Ha. The whales were the first of a list of animals that have since helped guide me through life. But i will never forget those whale beings.
Thanks so much Judy. I am very happy you liked it. I hope you will get there one day. You would love it.
I chuckle when you are begging the whales to come to your boat, that you’re friendly. I’m always begging animals in my head on safari or in the woods beside my house to come closer … “I just want to see how beautiful you are!” haha. We saw whales from our kayaks in Antarctica, but nowhere near close enough to touch. Knowing how even from that distance I could feel such presence from the whales, touching them must have been intensely powerful. Very cool.
I love this. It made me cry.
I’ve never known what whales think. I saw them glide near or burst away with the flash of a tail. They breach into the air or push themselves into the unseen depths below me. Their spouts are loud with an explosion of wind and salt spray, or gentle and slow in slumber at the surface. The delicate and small spout is more like a sigh which is the baby nestling under mother’s protective care. I see what they do, but I never knew what it meant or what they were thinking. The language spoken between whales in the sea has no parallel for our spoken word and thought. If I may borrow from the poet Rilke, “Things are not all so comprehensible and utterable as people would mostly have us believe; most events are unutterable, consummating themselves in a sphere where word has never trod, and more unutterable than them all are works of art, whose life endures by the side of our own that passes away.” Works of art and whales, endure by our side and pass silently away, I have no understanding what they are thinking. There are no words only feelings. Once you have met a soul so wonderful to behold, you may never understand the meaning behind it all but your heart will never forget the feeling. I have never forgotten. So it was in San Ignacio.
Thats amazing! Its on my bucket list for sure!! Thanks for sharing and check out my wildlife blog when you have a chance! 🙂 wildbioadventures.org