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Lessons from Whale Watching

Sighting a whale is always a thrill, even from a great distance.

The first thing you usually see is the whale’s exhalation-the spout. A white, misty column appears suddenly on the horizon, then slowly dissipates as you focus in on it.

Is it a whale? You watch and wait.

Somewhere, underneath the distant surface, a large, magnificent creature is breathing, surfacing, rolling.

Then another spout appears nearby. Yes! If you’re lucky or have binoculars on hand, you might detect the sun’s reflection off the back of the whale as it rolls, or perhaps the wave of a fluke as it dives.

It’s like a glimpse into a hidden world-a breach of the borders between water and air, sea and sky. It’s always miraculous. You feel lucky, blessed by the encounter.

But finding the whales out at sea is difficult. Even if you visit the coast at the right general time of year, they are hard to see from afar. There’s an element of luck-are the whales even present? The conditions matter, too. A fairly calm ocean makes it easier to see those…