Whales! Thar she blows! I need to spend some time with Ahab...

Humpback off the course of Hopkins...

Thar she blows! During one of our final outdoor discussions at Stanford's Hopkins Marine Station, we enjoyed our lunch while a mother humpback whale and her calf did acrobatics off shore... most of these shots (unless noted otherwise) were taken from the shore with my Nikon D80 DSLR camera through a Tamron 18/200mm zoom lens on a high speed shutter setting. Just as the allure and mystique of snapping photos of the chubby harbor seals, otters, and sea lions had started to wear off, these two pulled a 30 minute exercise session within plain view of our picnic tables... First you see the spout of water (no photos of the spout unfortunately) and then the whales break the surface! The pair were particularly playful on this day (not sure if it was the weather, time of day, temperature of water or what...). Even our dedicated whale watching expedition (on a chartered fishing boat) did not render nearly as many photo ops (insofar as the whales were concerned at least...). Check it out:

While the whale watching was absolutely entertaining from a "National Geographic" perspective, it really inspired me to pick up another copy of Moby Dick for a much-needed re-reading. It has (I'm embarrassed to say) been many years since I have read Melville beyond the normal anthology selections (Bartleby the Scrivener, Benito Cereno). Susan Shillinglaw, our Steinbeck Institute English Lit director, teaches a course with both Grapes of Wrath and Moby Dick - both books alternate from a "general" to a "specific" chapter... a stylistic choice that Steinbeck likely "borrowed" from Melville (as he was apparently reading Moby Dick while composing Grapes of Wrath. Several of the other English teachers (obviously an AP text) taught Moby Dick and through some great discussions with them I am really interested to not only get back into Melville but to perhaps use the text in my own classroom at some point in the not-too-distant future (paired with Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath... naturally... I beg, borrow, and steal all my good material... the "white whale" will certainly take on a multi-dimensional significance!). I actually read Moby Dick for the first time in a team-taught interdisciplinary AP Language / AP US History course when I was in high school and it was phenomenal... which reminds me... I need to reach out to my social studies dept. cohorts when I get back...

Anyway, the whales were a hoot to see "live and in person." This experience, coupled with our fabulous tidal zone / tidepool discovery session with Gilly and the marine biologist staff at Hopkins has certainly warped my perspective (in a good way) on viewing these animals in captivity... the aquarium is awesome--don't get me wrong--but seeing these creatures alive in their own natural habitats is just another experience altogether... one I hope everyone will have a chance to experience on some level at some point in their lives!

Tomorrow, I'll upload some of our awesome shots from our chartered boat tour... while the whales were not nearly as active (frisky!), there were many more in attendance (and much closer to the camera). Dolphins, Malo Malo, Jellies, and other animals were there, too... Stay tuned!