Life and Death and the Leviathan II

Image by Jim Munnelly 

There but for the grace of God go any one of us.

Maybe that’s what you thought as well upon hearing the news of the capsized whale watching boat, the Leviathan II, off Tofino, B.C., and the death of six tourists.

I looked up Leviathan. It's a word from the Old Testament meaning sea creature or sea monster.

There were 21 survivors thanks in huge part to those who have called the coast home for centuries. In this case,  the Ahousaht, their livelihoods and histories on the ocean intertwined. As we now know, two Ahousaht fishermen were first on scene, primed perhaps from a history of trauma and subsequent crisis assimilation; fight or flight, always at the ready.

One of the fishermen, turned, saw a flare, knew right away, and headed towards the Leviathan II. The response similar to the way their brothers (and sisters?) took to the waters of Hartley Bay after the MV Queen of the North accident in 2006. And probably during so many other lesser marine crises that never warrant publicity, lingering only in the minds of the few involved.

Every time you and I have gone on vacation, we have been those individuals. Whether close to home or on a far flung adventure, we trusted that everything wasn’t just going to be okay, it was going to be fantastic. Our expectations were the very best of what we packed.

It was me every time I stepped onto the whale watching zodiac on Salt Spring on more than a few occasions with the former owner, Ian Gidney, at the helm. I totally trusted that we were in good hands. After all, he'd done it for such a long time, handling that zodiac like a jeep on water, even on that day it felt like we were re-enacting  a new version of that movie, Thelma and Louise, but on water.

He just kept going and going, south and farther south still. Like a man with OCD, he was going to find us whales, no matter how long it took. And he did. Freighters passing not too far away in a shipping lane.

Add to that, all those other times in a kayak, even though I've never been properly trained, can't do an Eskimo Roll, and have no real idea how I’d react to being tipped over.

The very first time, a sunset cruise out of Ganges Harbour, circa 1996.  A summer evening, a little cloudy, a little windy, but nothing to get too worked up about, until that is, the grey turned charcoal, the cloud cover bowed like a geisha, the wind pitched like a cyclone, and every stroke became agony.

"Stick together," yelled the guide, the quiver in his voice its own soundwave, trying, unsuccessfully to hide his anxiety, screaming into the wind, his yells translating into a kite of a whisper, "Turn around, stick together!" 

Our individual wills focused on the brown spec of a wharf we'd launched off less than an hour before. When we finally made it back, exhaling our long-held breaths, too tired to haul ourselves onto that rough old dock, and just relief, that's all.

Or on another kayak trip. Discovery Islands group. Last day of the trip. A large wave caught my kayak from behind and carried me a long ways from the group. It looked as if I was intentionally surfing, another guide’s voice yelling my name, thinking I might be going all rogue on him on purpose. As if! 

Or further afield, giving my safety some thought, but not much, hoping for the best, donning invincible tourist mode and stepping onto a patch-worked riverboat in Cambodia with barely a lawnmower engine  to steer us down that shallow river from Lampang into the Tonle Sap. 

Or that beautiful day out of Sihanoukville, heading for the small island Koh Ta Kiev, with stops for snorkeling into the sea blue waters in a place that was all the better because of its foreignness, any potential danger someone else's concern. "Don't worry. You worry too much."

And finally, my own experience on a whale watching expedition out of Tofino so long ago. Thousands upon thousands before us over the years with the same excitement at what we all might get to see. That same feeling there for those six tourists looking forward to a great day and real live orcas not too far away.

A trip similar to one that so many domestic and international tourists alike have taken out of that picturesque West Coast village. The scramble, pulling, and shimmying into the survival suits before finding a place in a zodiac, hip to hip.  

We sat huddled together as the little rubber vessel bucked its way, headstrong, out across that black, frigid ocean. The slab of barnacled backs of the Grays that we'd come to spot, not quite real but too close and scary to me; living submarines. 

And the cold, mostly the cold, that's what I still recall. Wanting to verbalize what every goose bump on my body was screaming which was, "I've had enough now. Can we turn around now?"

Each and every one of us on every journey we take, with hope the best thing we pack.  Hope that there but for the grace of God comes true for us just one more time, rising inside to save us, because we choose to participate, not just observe, at least not all of the time.

True for boat people, and true, shockingly, for those six individuals who lost their lives in such an unlikely way in such a safe (relatively speaking) part of the world on October 25, 2015, in a place of hauntingly wild beauty.

So not fair indeed.

Out of respect for the people who lost their lives, I list their names:

• 
  
• Katie Taylor, 29, of Whistler, B.C.
• Jack Slater, 76, of Toronto.
• Nigel Francis Hooker, 63, of Southampton, U.K.
• David Wyndham Thomas, 50, of Swindon, U.K.
• Stephen David Thomas, 18, also of Swindon, son of David Thomas.
• and Ravisham Pillay, 27, from Australia (still missing).

Fernwood Dock Unlimited

This morning, after a night of heavy rain, the sun was warm. It sparkled on the ocean. I got out of bed in some sweats and a T-shirt and after microwaving my coffee, I put on the same thongs I've worn all summer, the ones that have left my feet a perpetual black, and I walked outside.

As I crossed my backyard and walked around my car, I could feel the dew of the blades of grass tracing my skin.  I could hear my steps on the gravel of the road. I love the way, in the sun, long yellow sheaths of grass are backlit and golden.  The Arbutus bark has turned as red as it will ever get bronzed by a summer of sunshine. I saw the black bunny run across the road near the house that's been for sale for ever and 7 crows in a tree farther ahead.

I was headed the 15 minutes or so it would take me to get to my favorite dock, Fernwood Dock. I now feel that I have photographed this dock, including the image below, from almost every angle possible. I'd have to be under the water or in an airplane to get it some other way than I have already. But, I'm sure I'm wrong as I say that. I'm sure there are still more ways. That is the challenge.

As I was walking back down the dock after taking these photos, two people - a man and a woman - walked hurriedly towards me. "There are whales out there," they said. "We could hear them from the beach." I turned around and walked back with them. Why couldn't I hear them I wondered. I couldn't see anything either. They pointed again. "Near the end of Wallace island," they said. I could see them, barely. I caught the glint of the sun off their wet skin and intermittent black fins as arrows rising from the water. I could see the fine mist from their blowholes. Just barely. A whole pod of them near Wallace island.

We watched in silence. They had binoculars. More people showed up. There were 9 of us now.
"It must be the sockeye," she said. Another two locals showed up. "Friends called us. They could see them all the way up  Trincomali Channel. We haven't seen whales in this channel for a while."

Another recalled the time a pod of Orcas cornered a Minke whale all the way into Ganges Harbour. "They cornered it and finished it off," she said.

It was one of those mornings when I was really paying attention knowing that being here, surrounded by beauty, is not to be taken for granted. A morning when everywhere I looked a natural gift materialized.

I could get up out of bed, wearing what I'd worn to bed, throw on a coat, walk in flip flops down the road and feel the warmth of the sunshine on my face while it brightened the red of beautiful Fernwood Dock. I could play with my camera at 8:30 am, capturing reflections and experience others' fascination with barely visible Orcas across the water. I could see sailboats and power boats and follow the wake they made in the silence of faraway waves. I could share the experience with others, just as awestruck by the luck of living surrounded by beauty and peace in a world where so few get to experience that reality, consistently.

When was the last time you were really paying attention to your surroundings and counting your blessings? When was the last time you were looking around and knowing that the moment you were experiencing would never come again, in the same way, and that you must savour it because it is the present and it's all you have. Just one moment after another. If you do not savour them, your life is passing in numbness and then, with regret, you will look back knowing that you experienced only a small portion of what was right there in front of you holding your potential for joy as if in a palm stretched lovingly towards a blind man?