The Whale
But! I have also been busy seeing a whale! I saw a real, live whale! Can you believe it? I went to another tour with Tupilak Travel (so far I've taken three of their trips, at some point they might be like hey, you gotta let others have a seat too!), to find whales. We found one almost immediately, it was just hanging around the fjord and taking deep breaths.
It's quite amazing. It was a humpback, we only saw its back and the tail when it dove but it still felt really profound somehow. To be in such a close proximity to such an incredibly huge animal and hear it breathing. I'm so happy we have such amazing animals here on earth and we have a chance to enjoy them.
The whale had this certain rhythm: it came up, blew out the air and then went back down. Then it surfaced a little further and the same thing happened maybe 5 or 6 times and it then it took a deep breath and slowly, very slowly arched its back and showed us its magnificent tail as it dove deeper. Then it swam around somewhere in the deep for about 5 minutes and came back up for breath.
Us puny humans on the boat watched maybe four cycles it doing this, waiting to hear the telltale breath to spot it again. Every time it resurfaced, I went like: "Shiiiiiit!" The other passengers were maybe not impressed with me swearing but it just came out. Seeing the whale was just the coolest thing. Even if it was not right next to the boat and even if it didn't do any jumps, it just felt like wow, I'm meeting this incredible, huge thing and okay, it doesn't know I'm here but it's actually real! This world can make astounding things happen!
The humpbacks have a very specific pattern on the inside of their tails so they can actually be recognized by those patterns. The captain had a little notebook of the local whales and said he thought this might have been Whale 29. Thanks for letting us meet you, Whale 29!
By the way, did you know that whales can sleep with only half of their brain? Like one half sleeps first and the other one keeps the animal going and then the other one. So weird. Wish I could do that. Or maybe I do. Maybe I do it all the time and maybe I'm never fully awake?
After seeing the whale, we just sailed around a bit. I don't even remember much after that. I saw the main event and I was happy, who cares about what comes after? I think we just sailed around the fjords and looked at the beautiful mountains. We passed a island full of abandoned houses but couldn't get off the boat, the island wasn't really a part of this tour. It was really beautiful, though, but more about that later. Here are some beautiful pictures of boats! I feel odd taking pictures with colors but here in Greenland, it feels fitting and natural. There's always a splash of color somewhere.
0 kommenttia