CHAPTER 19
Orca Day 21: Veterans Day
Okay, if we can’t close the inlet to boats, and we can’t get the boats off the water, we’ll have to lure them out,” I announce to Harris, Lena, and Grace. With no school today, we spend the whole morning brainstorming ideas to present to Kevin and Naomi on how to get the whales out of the inlet.
“How’s that different from herding?” Harris asks.
“It’s totally different,” I say, but I’m already thinking of other ideas. “Or we could dump fish and hope they follow. Or—”
“You’d need a lot of fish,” Lena says and I frown, because she’s right.
“You have a better idea?” Harris asks, but not in a mean way.
“Hey!” Lena says, after a long pause. “What about using some kind of music?”
“Ha!” Harris laughs. “That opera Kevin’s always playing sounds an awful lot like whale calls!”
“That’s true,” I tap the pencil against my cheek. “But Naomi said they tried that up in Alaska. The whales wouldn’t follow.”
Nobody has anything else to suggest, and I shake my head in frustration. Not a one of these ideas is going to impress Kevin. We need something we can prove will work.
I think for a minute, remembering watching the whales through the telescope in Carol Ann Reese’s room, seeing the three orcas return because the calves didn’t follow. What did Tal say once? Orcas are careful not to stay and forage in any one area for too long.
He was talking about overfishing and the effects on the environment, but thinking about his words now gives me an important clue.
I push my chair back from the table and stand up.
“We’re thinking about all this the wrong way!” Everyone stares at me, waiting. “The whales aren’t staying in the inlet because they want to. They’re staying because they can’t get out on their own.”
I haven’t said anything new, not really, so why does it feel new to me? “Before we can figure out how, we need to figure out why.”
Lena sighs, breaking the silence. “Sounds good, Marisa. Let’s just figure it out quick, okay? Before something really awful happens.”
––––
The images of the Penn Cove capture keep replaying in my head. I can’t sleep and toss and turn for what seems like hours. Finally, I give up and click on the light. I have no idea what time it is but it doesn’t matter. Lena is right. We have to figure out why the whales won’t leave before it’s too late. Inside my head, a familiar voice starts up again.
People need more than just dreams. They need action.
It’s Mom, of course, with her practical–idealistic “I-can-change-the-world” approach. Oh, how I wish she were here to help me now. She would absolutely know what to do. But at least one thing is clear to me—it’s time to stop worrying and take action. Right now.
Getting out of bed, I dress quickly. It’s cold and the irony of what I’m struggling with hits me. All this time I’ve spent trying to figure out why my mother left and now I’m trying even harder to figure out why the whales won’t leave.
I have no new plan, but I need time. Time to think. Time by myself out on the inlet, where it’s quiet. I guess I’m like Mom that way. She used to take long walks alone if she needed to work out a problem. I go to the inlet. Tossing a few things into my backpack, I scribble a quick note to Dad, leaving it on the kitchen counter where he’s sure to see it. Stepping outside, I shut the door as quietly as I can and bike slowly up the embankment to Veneta Street. The sky is still dark—there’s at least another hour till sunrise.
As I coast down the hill to Mud Bay, there’s just the slightest hint of light in the sky and a soft drizzle falls on my face and hands. It’s the second week of November and the unusually dry fall we’ve had won’t last much longer. Soon the winter rains will start. Not that the whales will care, but it might make a difference for the crowds.
For once, I find myself wishing for the dry season to end.
I tuck my bike under the dry eave of the storage shed and drag out our old kayak that Dad keeps here in storage. Slipping on a life jacket, I climb in. As soon as I start paddling, the sound of pulling water soothes me. All I want to do is drift and think, so I head west, toward the widest part of the inlet.
But in the fifteen minutes it takes me to reach the center, the rain stops and a thick layer of fog rolls in from the south. Dyes Inlet is like a bowl. Once a storm front or fog bank moves in, it sinks down to cover the inlet until an even stronger weather front blows it away or the sun burns it off. Mom and Dad talked about it constantly—always being prepared for unpredictable weather.
I feel my nerves rising. Okay, nothing to worry about really. How far off course can I go? It’s a pretty small inlet, except … it’s not really. My muscles tense, making each new paddle stroke harder than the last.
The memory of Harris and Jesse struggling in the water comes back to haunt me. Even a small inlet is huge when you’re in a kayak in the dark and no one can see you. My little boat is alone, with no whale watchers out here now. But somewhere under the cold water, there’s a pod of nineteen killer whales swimming around. I shiver. I know perfectly well that orcas are fish eaters, but I also know they’re curious. A single kayaker out on a foggy inlet might attract that curiosity.
But there’s no sign of whales anywhere. Even if there were, I’d never know it because everything is blanketed now in fog so thick I can barely see the front end of the kayak. I look left, right, ahead. The color is totally drained from the landscape and I paddle on in a silvery world.
I grit my teeth and concentrate, trying to remember everything Dad ever taught me about kayaking in bad weather. Part of me goes into automatic mode, calling on the instructions he drilled into me so often in our time spent on the water. Slowly, I maneuver the craft so I’m facing the direction the wind is blowing, then raise my paddle and push it down vertically, into the water as hard as I can, to stop the kayak from drifting.
Then I wait.
It’s impossible to estimate how far I’ve already gone from the shore. Dad says staying in one place is better than blindly rowing yourself into the path of another vessel.
Use your ears, Marisa. Listen and reposition yourself if you need to.
I listen.
At first, all I think I hear is the sound of my own blood pulsing in my ears, but when I concentrate I know there’s something more. A low but steady rumble seems to sink right down into my bones. Every few seconds, I think I see a flash of red, but I can’t be sure if I’m just imagining it.
The rumbling gets louder—it’s almost a roar now. I’m drifting … I can feel it.…
I try as hard as I can to wrap my mind around what could be happening, when—
WWwwwwaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh
My free hand shoots up to cover my ear. The kayak wobbles and I nearly lose my grip on my paddle. Breathing hard, I squint up and stare. Whatever sky I could see before is blotted out now—looming over me instead is a gloomy, black shadow. It feels oppressive—like it could crush me at any moment, push me down deep into the water, where there’s no air—
No air? Wait! This has happened before, this massive black shadow … this sense of foreboding.… I’ve lived this before in my nightmare!
Then, suddenly, everything clicks and I know exactly where I am … directly under the Warren Avenue Bridge.
Time slows to a crawl. I sit there in the fog, paralyzed, gripping the vertical paddle, afraid to let the kayak drift even a foot in any direction. The Warren Avenue Bridge spans the inlet’s exit to Rich Passage. If I cross under the bridge and get caught in the Passage’s current, I’ll run the risk of being pulled out toward the open water of the channel. And in this fog, my chances of getting myself reoriented and back into the inlet will be slim.
I take a few deep breaths, trying to decide what to do next. But the next minute, my concentration is broken again, this time by a different sound—pfoosh, pfoosh, pfoosh—the unmistakable e
xhalation of a whale blow mixed with the sound of gurgling water.
I swivel left, then right, trying to gauge how close they might be.
Suddenly, a whale spyhops on the port side of my kayak—close enough for me to clearly see him even in the thick fog. I gasp and he slips silently back under the water. His mother comes next. She’s four times as large, and spyhops so far out of the water I’m afraid my little kayak will capsize. I struggle to keep level, imagining the headline in tomorrow’s paper: “Kayaker Mauled by Salmon-Starved Whales.”
Again the two whales appear together, but this time they don’t spyhop. Instead, they surface not more than twenty feet off my starboard side and start echolocating me like crazy. I’ve still got my paddle stuck straight down in the water, trying to steady myself in the current, and I can feel the rat-tat-tat pulses directed my way.
My heart thumps in my chest, but even through my fear, I can’t help but marvel at their beauty. The little one—it’s Muncher again, I’m sure of it—stays nearby, floating, the closest he’s ever gotten to me. His skin is as smooth as a beach ball. He stares right at me, his little eye patch focused, while his mother makes a big blow, then does a deep dive.
Mom’s entire body seems to be crosshatched with scratches and scars. I can clearly see nicks and cuts on her dorsal fin. She’s magnificent all the same. Seeing her saddle patch so closely, I’m amazed that what looks like pure white from a distance is really more like mottled gray, with subtle variations.
Then something under the water bumps the end of my sunken blade, hard, throwing me off balance. I grip the shaft of my paddle with both hands, my knuckles white with fear, but the paddle swivels sideways anyway as the kayak starts rocking back and forth wildly. For a panicked second, I’m certain the whale is going to push my kayak up from below the surface of the water. Or knock me over. But seconds more pass and nothing happens.
Then, plunk, it bumps my paddle again. The mother whale surfaces maybe a hundred yards away, behind me to my left. Muncher does a quick little dive and sprints off in her direction. Reunited, they spyhop, dive, and circle lazily at the surface, ignoring me.
All behavior is communication.
My breath comes in quick little bursts. Could it be … are they waiting for me to follow? In a heartbeat, I decide to trust them.
I scramble to reposition my paddle, keeping my eyes glued on my two rescuers, my hands numb from the cold. Somehow, I manage to angle the blade into the water and execute a 180-degree turn. Oriented, I begin paddling toward the circling whales.
When I’m as near as I dare, Muncher spyhops and gives out a little squeal. His mother dives again. I pause, scanning the water, waiting to see where she’ll resurface. Muncher and I both locate her at the same time. He quickly races toward her. I follow.
We continue this pattern for two or three more cycles. Slowly, I relax into paddling again, my fear mostly gone now. It becomes a game and quickly we make distance. Only once does Muncher become distracted when he spots a cache of salmon shoaled up in some shallow water and spends a few minutes chasing at the surface.
Finally, his mother calls him back with her rat-tat-tat call. The second he leaves, four seagulls swoop down to scavenge the spot. That means there are still salmon, and I make a mental note to tell Kevin.
The fog has lifted slightly now and when I peer toward the shoreline edge I can just make out a few spots of orange and blue—the brightly colored kayaks of Mud Bay. Thirty feet from the dock, Muncher and his mother begin their slow circling of my kayak again. Each does a deep dive under me, coming up on the inlet side. They roll on their sides, moving together in perfect unison. Two pec fins—one big, one little—reach toward the sky in a salute, then come down to slap the surface. Fountains of water and mist spew through their blowholes. One last time, they dive together and disappear.
Alone again, I breathe in the cool, salty air, pulling my eyes away from the rippling surface of the water, reluctant to end our play. But in my heart, I know it wasn’t a game. The fog has all burned off now. Shallow water sloshes around the kayak. I sit motionless, not yet ready to reenter the world.
In the distance, the Warren Avenue Bridge rumbles on, its load of cars and trucks getting louder and louder by the minute as morning traffic picks up. I stop and really listen and the constant noise snakes itself into my head. I can feel it taking over my body, slowly but surely erasing the images and sounds of the whales.
And that’s when I make the connection. That’s when I know, without a doubt, what’s stopping the whales from leaving the inlet.
CHAPTER 20
Everything is crystal clear now and I know exactly what I need to do. Hauling my kayak out of the water as quickly as I can, I drag it back up the dock, dumping it near the storage shed and throwing my life jacket down. Then I’m on my bike, racing back across the bridge and north on the still-deserted roads toward the Tracyton boat launch. Only one car comes toward me, its headlights blinding bright.
I have to find Kevin. I know he’ll understand.
I make the two-mile ride in record time, skidding down the gravel embankment and running right up to the van. I knock hard on the back door. No answer. I knock again, louder this time. I even jiggle the handle but it’s locked.
The dock is empty. The air is still chilly but the sun has broken through the clouds. I have no idea what time it is but don’t care. I decide to wait. Kevin and Naomi will be working even on a holiday.
Five minutes later they both come walking down the ramp, carrying steaming cups of coffee.
“Marisa? Hey … you okay?” Naomi asks when she’s closer. I’m soaking wet and must look half wild.
“I was out on the water and the whales came!” I burst out, breathless. “They came in the fog … it was Muncher!”
“Whoa! Slow down.…” Kevin puts up his hand. He quickly unlocks the van and they guide me inside, where it’s warm. “Where were you?”
“The inlet. I was out on the inlet and—”
“What in blazes were you doing out there alone in the fog?” Kevin yells. “Marisa! This isn’t a joke. I don’t think I can—”
“No!” I cut him off. “I’m fine, really. But I figured it out! It’s not what we thought … it’s not the vessel traffic on the water. It’s the bridge!” I tell them, barely able to contain my excitement. “It’s all the noise from the traffic on the bridge that’s blocking the whales from leaving!”
I watch as Naomi sets a pot of water on the camp stove and wait for Kevin to announce how brilliant I am and how everything will be all right now. But his expression doesn’t change. He slides a tape into his cassette player and flicks a switch. The music, quiet this time, fills the cramped compartment. Then he turns toward me, his face as stern as stone.
“How do you know this, Marisa?”
The quiet in his voice unnerves me.
“I … I was right underneath the overpass. It’s huge and dark, and it casts this awful shadow on the water.…” I pause, searching for the right words, trying to explain that feeling of dread that filled my whole body as I drifted under the roadway.
“Here you go, sweetie.” Naomi hands me some hot tea.
“I think that’s why they won’t go underneath it.” I take the cup from her, grateful. “And this isn’t the first time … it happened once before, and I saw it! The time you thought they might leave when the tide was good, remember? The mothers went under the bridge but they came back because the calves wouldn’t follow!”
Kevin sighs loudly, running both hands through his hair.
“I really appreciate everything ya’ll have been doing to help the whales out here,” he says. “It’s a tremendous job of stewardship—”
“There’s a shadow, too, when they’re under it.…” I continue, remembering my dream of swimming with the whales, nearly drowning under the massive blackness looming above me. “The calves always stop when they get near the bridge, and won’t cross below it. And the mothers won’t go without the ca
lves. So none of them leave.”
“We’ll get them out. We’re working hard on all sorts of ideas,” Kevin says, and I can hear the impatience in his voice. “Everything from attracting them with recorded whale calls to pushing them with a flotilla of boats—”
“None of that will work,” I cut him off. “It won’t make any difference. They’ll just get to the bridge and stop. We have to do something about the bridge!”
“Such as?” Naomi asks.
“I … I don’t know,” I mumble, taken aback by her direct question. “I guess I thought you’d figure that out.”
Everything I know about whales I learned from Mom. After hearing the Penn Cove story, I realize why she loved them so much. I breathe and try to reach out to her, channel her.
“Marisa, the whales entered the inlet under the bridge,” I hear Kevin say. “Have y’all considered that? Why would they have trouble leaving the same way?”
“Because they came in at night, when it was quiet,” I whisper, almost to myself. “Now … every time they try to leave, the noise turns them away.”
There’s a tapping on the van door. Harris and Lena poke their heads inside, and my heart does a little flip, I’m so glad to see them.
They do a quick read of the situation and stop dead in their tracks.
Naomi looks back and forth between us.
“Kev, it is true that the pod doesn’t usually travel at night,” she says, her voice tentative. “Chasing salmon was probably what brought them in and broke their pattern, but we all agreed that was unusual.”
“Yeah!” Harris chimes in. “And now the salmon are gone, so there’s nothing to chase the other way to attract them out.”
“That makes sense,” Lena nods.
“Well,” Kevin says, his voice now tense, “I’m glad all the experts are in agreement, but even if I was convinced, how exactly do you propose we do this? I can’t even get the port to restrict vessel traffic. I think history shows our priorities when it comes to humans versus whales.”
Chasing at the Surface Page 14
