This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Whale Memories

We forget, living so close to the sea, that we share our coast with these spectacular beings that nearly became extinct.

A crowd of people has gathered on the patio of the Point Vicente Interpretive Center. They are crowded together in one spot, binoculars and cameras all pointing in one direction, out to sea. Susan and I are walking the path along the bluff down from the lighthouse  towards the center. We stop at the railing and look where the others are looking.

"Is that a whale?!?" she asks in disbelief as a large shiny dark body slips beneath the surface. We wait, straining our eyes, watching the the rolling blue-green surface for something to appear. Sure enough, two giant creatures crest a few moments later. One spouts and then the other before they too disappear beneath the surface. There is excited chatter from the watchers up and down the railing along this bluff overlooking the mighty Pacific and, as the disgorged mist disappears, I wonder if the whales regard us humans in the same manner, if there is a stir when they see so many humans in one place as the whales journey south to give birth to their young in the warm waters of Mexico.

I drift back in time and see my ancient Italian grandmother in her little house. She is telling us kids about her trip to America. She was six years old and was traveling by ship with her mother and sister and brothers from Palermo to New York to meet her father. She and her siblings could not remember what he looked like he had been gone so long. But he had saved enough to bring them here. On the voyage, there had been some excitement, people had lined up at the railing and were pointing at something she was too small to see. A man standing nearby asked if she would like to see what everyone was looking at and he lifted her up to peer over the railing and she beheld a whale. "You can just imagine the look on my face," she would say chuckling and wide-eyed, "I had NEVER seen a creature like THAT before!" Whales were hunted in those days, near to extinction.

Find out what's happening in Belmont Shore-Napleswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

One of MY greatest whale memories was traveling south on Highway One along the central coast. It was one of those magnificent parts where the terrain is so rugged the highway is as narrow and windy as it can possibly be. We had stopped at a turnout high above the ocean, which spread out like a broad aquamarine plain before us. It was March and the young whale families were headed north and across this broad plane we could see spouts, first here and then there, one after another after another. It was hard to drive away from that place. I will tell my grandchildren, "You can just imagine the look on my face...I had NEVER seen anything like THAT before!"

 

Find out what's happening in Belmont Shore-Napleswith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Tim Bulone is an ardent observer of life on the swirling blue marble. He works at Davis Group Consulting and creates fine art and canvas prints which he likes to sell from time to time at http://www.MyFamilyArt.com He is an early morning pedestrian in Belmont Shore, where he resides with his wife.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?

More from Belmont Shore-Naples