Yesterday, Martha saw some activity out in the surf, and we both picked up our binoculars and took a closer look. There seemed to be dolphins out there, not far from shore, leaping out of the water; but some of them were larger than the dolphins we had seen in the past, and I noticed what looked like water spraying into the air. We realized that what we were seeing was humpback whales breaching, and also perhaps a pod of dolphins swimming with them, feeding on a school of fish. Gulls were flying overhead and kept diving down to pick up the scraps. I went out the walkway and took 50 or more pictures with my iPhone, none of which turned out very well, but you could clearly see the water spraying up in the air, and sometimes a long black body in the water, much larger than a dolphin.
As we near the end of our Sabbatical, we have begun to list on the fingers of one hand the things that we still would like to see and do before returning to the mountains - a long walk on the beach, for example, if it ever warms up enough (it was 30 degrees this morning!) We did not expect to be able to include on that short list these humpback whales, these magnificent creatures, inhabitants of the deep ocean, here so close to shore.
“But even so, amid the tornadoed Atlantic of my being, do I myself
still for ever centrally disport in mute calm; and while ponderous
planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland
there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy.”
―
Herman Melville, Moby Dick
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