Listening to Whales by Alexandra Morton

Author:Alexandra Morton [Morton, Alexandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-48754-4
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2012-01-03T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Robin and I needed three things in a home port: whales, mail service, and playmates for Jarret. He was now two, and it didn’t seem fair to raise our boy in ship-bound isolation. Our charter business paid the bills and allowed us to make a living on the water, but it didn’t allow for the life we wanted. Running a boat had turned into a full-time job. I began referring to the Fjord as “the other woman” because she was so demanding. Her silent threat, fix me or I’ll sink, ensured that she always got what she wanted. We recaulked her decks, sandblasted her hull, reroofed her, reboomed her, and repaired the freezer more times than I could count. Between the charters and maintenance, we had no time or money for whale work.

My patience for charter work finally ran out on a summer day in Port Alexander, off the northern end of Vancouver Island. I was making lunch for an IMAX film crew, slathering mayonnaise on slices of bread. When the sharp retort of whale blows reached my ears, I looked up to see an assemblage of G clan whales passing us in single file and the girlfriend of an IMAX crew member taking my Zodiac out to see them.

“That’s it for me,” I told Robin when we finished the charter. “I’ll plan the menu, do the shopping, and hire a cook, but there’s no bloody way I’m going to be trapped in that galley by sliced white bread ever again.”

Robin surprised me by agreeing. “I’m bent over in the engine room, where I can’t even see daylight, much less pick up a camera.”

So when a group of anthropologists chartered the Blue Fjord for a run up to the Queen Charlotte Islands, Robin and I made a pact to stay north, find a spot of our own, and begin the life we had dreamed of. Without Victoria’s high berthing fees, we figured our whale photographs and Robin’s underwater film business could support all three of us. If things turned desperate, we could always pick up a charter.

We bought as much film and audiotape as we could afford and stocked the pantry with dried beans, rice, pasta, a few spices, and a tofu press. I would’ve loaded the freezer, too, but the Blue Fjord’s refrigeration system tended to work at random intervals, and I didn’t want to poison the whole family. I canned corn, tomatoes, salmon, and pickles. We repaired the fishing rods and laid in a new supply of hooks. If all else failed, we’d catch our supper. In Victoria I bought shirts, sweaters, pants, and shoes two and three sizes too big for Jarret.

Since there weren’t any good outdoor clothes for toddlers, I laid in a supply of ripstop nylon, bunting, flannel, and wool cloth. I bought an old hand-cranked sewing machine and made Jarret a winter wardrobe. My sister-in-law Colleen helped us make a canvas cover for the forward third of our new family-sized Zodiac to give Jarret some protection from the wind.

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