The Adventures of Humphrey the Whale

Humphrey had a problem.  He had travelled from his winter feeding grounds near Mexico all the way up to who-knows-where and now he was being chased around his "dining room table" by a bunch of hairless beach apes.  This brought back a traumatic incident from when he was a calf that haunts him to this day.

Since his birth, Humphrey had a carefree life.  He would follow his mother around the oceans of the world, eating, spouting, eating, basking in the warm sunny waters of Hawaii, eating, shivering in the cold Atlantic waters, more eating, a bit of singing to the oldies from his youth, lots more spouting, interspersed with more eating.  Come to think of it, he spent most of his days eating.  No wonder he was now huge and couldn't fit into some shallower bays like he used to.

Humphrey had some favourite foods  - anchovies were what he liked best - and the place that served the best anchovies was what the hairless beach apes called San Francisco Bay.  One day, the pod was feeding on a school of sardines near San Francisco Bay when one of his buddies came up to him and told him about a "secret" location inside the bay where he had found a school of  anchovies hanging out with no other whales in sight.  Humphrey and his friend, Bill Luga left the pod and headed into the bay.  They searched all around the bay and were just about to give up, when their sonar picked up a school of fish.  Humphrey charged at them at full speed, ignoring Bill's warnings.

The fish, although individually about as smart as a pile of rocks, seemed to have enough brains as a group to figure things out.  As soon as they spotted that whale torpedo, they darted away.  As it turned out, they headed into the mouth of the Sacramento River.  Humphrey could sense that the water was getting shallower, and could hear his friend Bill calling out a warning, but Humphrey was determined to satisfy his hankering for some fresh anchovy.  It was only when Humphrey felt his bottom scraping against the bed of the bay that he started having second thoughts.  But he was going too fast to stop easily and with one mighty flap of his tail, found himself beached on a mudflat.  Now, this was something that he had never experienced in his life and his parents had never told him what to do in such a situation.  No son of theirs would ever be expected to do something so stupid.

Humphrey rolled and thrashed for a bit, but it was no use.  The tide was ebbing and he was higher and drier than he had ever been before.  Then he saw a group of hairless beach apes, the likes of whom he had only ever seen from a distance on some tropical islands turning pink in the hot sun, gathering around him.  Crowds of them gathered, flashes of light came every few seconds and soon, a noisy machine, like a boat in the air, hovered nearby.  Some of the apes began spraying him with water, which made things more bearable, but that still did not get him out of the situation in which he found himself.

Many hours later, Humphrey could feel the tide coming back in.  Some of the apes wrapped a large net, like the ones he had often encountered in the oceans, around his head.  Then, he felt a strong pull and heard the sound of large boats very nearby.  Humphrey soon realized that the boats were pulling the net and the net was pulling him.  Before long, he was back in the deeper water of the bay, the net was relaxed and he was able to swim free.

Now, many years later, here he was dining on capelin and a boat filled with hairless beach apes was chasing him and his pod around.  Humphrey gave them a big tail slap to warn them off, but that only seemed to encourage them.  After a while of playing hide-and-seek, Humphrey raised his tail in the air, gave the boat a rude gesture and dove deep.

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Although we did not see Humphrey, we took Anne and Ilse on a whale and puffin watching boat tour where we saw various groups of whales feeding. We even saw a mother and calf. The sky was filled with Puffins where reminded me of the movie, The Birds.

Bev, Ilse and Al

Anne, Bev and Al

   

One of the tour guide singing a fishing ditty. She had a beautiful voice. Notice the little boy clapping.

  

Female whales. There are actually four feeding here following the movement of one leader

Also on this tour we were amazed by the number of puffins, common murres and kittiwakes in around and above the water and particularly on Gull Island, part of the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve.

That's not snow or ice on the cliff face, folks.  Zoom in for a closer look.

 The sky was filled with Puffins. They also liked to dive into the water looking for capelin. We were surrounded! 

 Puffins nesting

The six inch Puffin with colourful beak. This colourful beak is shed after mating season.

Kudos to Gatherall's Tours for a great excursion.  Here is the ship's captain entertaining us with a Newfoundlander's version of a childhood rhyme you may recognize.

Oh, little Puffin in the sky

Oops, what’s that in my eye?

I’m not mad, damned if I cry

I’m just glad that whales don’t fly.