Call me Ishmael

   All of the restaurants in all of the seaside towns around Boston have entryways with racks of brochures that are full of pamphlets advertising sturdy little ships that go out from the nearby harbor toward some rolling ocean meadow where the captain knows the whales will be.  The pamphlets of course have great pictures of whales – the great heads of whales breaching, the great backs of whales rolling and diving, the great flukes of whales that somehow make better, more iconic pictures than their faces.    

   And then we finally go – driving into P-town from our rental in Truro, cruising out of the harbor, thinking we will be happy if we see a whale or two.  The captain and the naturalist assure us that we’re in for much better than that.  

   Indeed.  Minke whales at first, so close to shore.  Terrific whales, which roll around us but – as is their habit – neither breach nor show their tales. 

   And then, farther out, at the edge of Stellwagen Bank, we encounter the tremendous humpback whales – sometimes alone, sometimes in groups, rising, rolling, spewing, diving and finally, as we are about to head back, breaching again and again. 

   The naturalist admits that the experts have no idea why whales do this.  It seems not to be a mating ritual, or display of aggression, or anything else that correlates.  So maybe, I’m thinking, it’s just fun.