Magdalena Bay, Baja California Sur
Our eyes meet and we search into their depths for some key, some clue to understanding the thoughts of another. Does he or she return our gaze, a sign of acceptance and desire to carry the acquaintanceship to another level? Or do the eyes turn away in shyness or rejection? With humans non-verbal cues can open doors or just as quickly erect a wall. Past experiences have taught us all the signs and what they mean.
But how can we know the thoughts, if thoughts be there, when we stare straight into the dark and shining oculus of a baby whale? Why does it come to us, raise its rostrum and open its mouth in what can only be interpreted as a smile? Is there no memory of the torture imposed upon its ancestors by man? Are we, in our rubber boats, just big bathtub toys that when touched emit loud squeals and set tentacles writhing from all sides? Their eyes are so like ours and although proportionally smaller, their brains are similar too. Tiny hairs stand like bristly whiskers on the face of the young gray whale who takes a break from play to slurp the thick nutritious milk pumped from the mammary glands of its gargantuan mom. Mammals both, humans and whales, that we understand. But their language we are yet to comprehend and only then will we be able to read the message in their gaze.
As the sun rose, casting color across the sky and painting the waters a crimson red, we floated among the whales, well inside the crashing surf of Boca de Soledad. To our west Magdalena Island slowly awoke, its dunes advancing ever so slowly in the gentle wind. Birds streamed seaward in search of food. All around the blows of gray whales punctuated the slacking sea. When the bright orb above advanced only slightly higher in the sky, we left and transited the Hull Canal. Verdant mangroves contrasted with lichen-draped cacti that were just as strange as the hummocks of sand embraced and held by halophytic sea purslane and sand verbena.
We walked among the dunes on the island and strolled the firm sands of Bahia Santa Maria, its curving beach embracing a tiny fragment of the mighty Pacific Ocean. Mountains rose at either end, silent sentinels guarding the serenity within the bay. Giant sand dollars littered the shore where waves lapped at a necklace of assorted shells. It was here we got down on our knees to peer into another set of eyes. Complete with cornea and lenses, dozens of ocelli, looking like no more than miniscule black dots or flecks of sand, stared from the mantle’s sensory fold inside pastel striped scallop shells. We knew more of their thoughts for they had none at all, lacking an organ as sophisticated as a brain. They only knew that the shadow cast by our advancing frames might represent the presence of an enemy. A simple message was transmitted through its ganglia. “Close the door.” There would be no more communication there.
But in the sharing of all of this we learned to know each other slightly more.
Our eyes meet and we search into their depths for some key, some clue to understanding the thoughts of another. Does he or she return our gaze, a sign of acceptance and desire to carry the acquaintanceship to another level? Or do the eyes turn away in shyness or rejection? With humans non-verbal cues can open doors or just as quickly erect a wall. Past experiences have taught us all the signs and what they mean.
But how can we know the thoughts, if thoughts be there, when we stare straight into the dark and shining oculus of a baby whale? Why does it come to us, raise its rostrum and open its mouth in what can only be interpreted as a smile? Is there no memory of the torture imposed upon its ancestors by man? Are we, in our rubber boats, just big bathtub toys that when touched emit loud squeals and set tentacles writhing from all sides? Their eyes are so like ours and although proportionally smaller, their brains are similar too. Tiny hairs stand like bristly whiskers on the face of the young gray whale who takes a break from play to slurp the thick nutritious milk pumped from the mammary glands of its gargantuan mom. Mammals both, humans and whales, that we understand. But their language we are yet to comprehend and only then will we be able to read the message in their gaze.
As the sun rose, casting color across the sky and painting the waters a crimson red, we floated among the whales, well inside the crashing surf of Boca de Soledad. To our west Magdalena Island slowly awoke, its dunes advancing ever so slowly in the gentle wind. Birds streamed seaward in search of food. All around the blows of gray whales punctuated the slacking sea. When the bright orb above advanced only slightly higher in the sky, we left and transited the Hull Canal. Verdant mangroves contrasted with lichen-draped cacti that were just as strange as the hummocks of sand embraced and held by halophytic sea purslane and sand verbena.
We walked among the dunes on the island and strolled the firm sands of Bahia Santa Maria, its curving beach embracing a tiny fragment of the mighty Pacific Ocean. Mountains rose at either end, silent sentinels guarding the serenity within the bay. Giant sand dollars littered the shore where waves lapped at a necklace of assorted shells. It was here we got down on our knees to peer into another set of eyes. Complete with cornea and lenses, dozens of ocelli, looking like no more than miniscule black dots or flecks of sand, stared from the mantle’s sensory fold inside pastel striped scallop shells. We knew more of their thoughts for they had none at all, lacking an organ as sophisticated as a brain. They only knew that the shadow cast by our advancing frames might represent the presence of an enemy. A simple message was transmitted through its ganglia. “Close the door.” There would be no more communication there.
But in the sharing of all of this we learned to know each other slightly more.
