I've taken slight liberty with the lyrics to "New York Minute" by Don Henley, my favorite artist because his song reminds me of our encounter:
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In an Alaskan minute, everything can change.
In an Alaskan minute, things can get a little strange.
In an Alaskan minute, everything can change!
...
It could have changed for us a bit too permanently, but fortuately, it did not!
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It was one of those rare days made for sailing. You just don't get that many of them when you are cruising in the southeast Alaskan archipelago. Too much land surrounding you and often the channel is too narrow. Too much wind or too little wind. Or wind from the direction you want to go or from directly behind you, and thus not sailable. This day was a lucky exception. Plenty of wind from the right direction and a 15-mile wide strait to cross.
When the wind reached 12 knots (any less and it's just not worth it), we hoisted our sails and turned off the engine. Ah! The peace and quiet. Such a pleasant and delightful change from the unending thrum of our diesel engine. All is right with the world. Only the howl of the wind, an occasional flap of the sails as a gust hits them, the sound of waves slapping against our hull, the whirring sound of our fixed prop turning as we speed through the water, and me screaming, "Aaaah! Too much heel! Too much heel! Make it stop! Make it stop!!!"
Our heel meter indicated we were vascillating between 15 and 20 degrees. In my mind, we were about to tip over. Scary! (Can you tell I hate too much heel? Brad did not seem bothered by it in the least.) The winds were now gusting up to 25 knots, with the average between 18 to 22. I begged Brad to make the heeling stop and he did so by putting in a reef in both the main and jib. Ah! Only 10 degrees heel and I am happy. Of course, that meant our speed decreased accordingly from 7 knots to 5.6 but that was just fine by me.
We were sailing a beam reach from Red Bluff Bay on Baranof Island across Chatham Strait to Honeydew Cove off Kuiu Island. Once we got north of Kingsmill Point on Kuiu Island, the wind shifted as predicted (to match the topography) so we were able to shake out the reefs in our sails. We then would sail a broad reach until it would be time to turn south to our anchorage destination or the wind died out, whichever came first.
Shortly after we removed the reefs, we both saw a whale spout dead ahead but way out in the distance, probably a half mile or more ahead. We both watched intently, scanning ahead, to see where the whale came up next so we could determine its direction of travel. We watched and watched, scanning ahead side to side, but we didn't catch another sighting. After a few minutes, we both gave up looking. (Whales can hold their breath for up to 20 minutes so it is common to see a blow and then not see another. And sometimes they come up with virtually no spray at all so you don't have a chance of spotting them.)
We were cruising along at a nice clip, about 6 knots, which was good for our boat so we were pleased. (As you may have guessed, it's not a racer.) I spotted a large cruise ship about 3 miles to port. Other than that, there were no other visual distractions. I scanned back towards the bow and screamed "WHALE!" Not just one, but TWO humpback whales surfaced about 60 feet in front of us and just ever so slighlty to starboard. They were lolligagging on the surface, their backs perpendicular to us, taking their sweet time, heading ever so slowly to port, meaning a direct, head-on collision!
From lessons learned a few weeks ago (which I will explain later), Brad immediately started our engine so the whales could hear us. This had no effect on their behavior, and, since we were closing in on real disaster within seconds, we had to do something else - and FAST! Brad said "I'll turn!" I thought to myself, if we turn to port we might hit them if they speed up since that is the way they are headed, not to mention the fact that we will most likely jibe violently (which can break the rigging). If we turn to starboard, we will hit them for sure since we can't turn on a dime. So I yelled "REVERSE! REVERSE! REVERSE!" Brad did so without hesitation and gave it full reverse. (Note that this only slowed us down as we had full sails out.) The resulting cavitation finally got the whales attention! The dorsal fins shimmied back and forth violently and they dove in an instant, flapping their flukes just 20 feet from our bow. We sailed right over their splash ripples and bubbles. Crisis averted!
During this, there had been no time to be scared. There was only time for action. We were in survival mode. Now that it was over, we had an overabundance of adrenalin to deal with. Brad said, "Man! I need a drink!" We both did, but of course, we didn't. We were so very happy to be alive and completely unscathed from this very near miss. I couldn't help but think of my old friend Laura who is deathly afraid of being on the water and of all the sea creatures lurking below who might reach up and smite her. I could just hear her saying, "I TOLD YOU SO!"
Like the conservative, safety-conscious people we are, we analyzed the scenario. We suspect that the whales could not hear us since we were sailing. We knew noise is important for safety. Whales avoid boats and even kayaks as much as possible, but they have to be aware of your presence. We leared this from a recent incident. A couple on a sailboat very near the town of Hoonah (which was just five miles from where we had been earlier) was rescued after a whale encounter. They reported that they had turned off their engine to watch the nearby whales as they drifted. A whale punched their keel up through the bottom of their sailboat, causing it to sink abruptly. They were rescued by a passing fishing boat, but their boat was a total loss.
So why didn't turning the engine on fix the problem? We think it was because of the cruise ship that was so near. Cruise ships make an overwhelming amount of underwater noise with their massive engines and propellers. We are sure this kind of close encounter doesn't happen very often because if it did, someone would surely have invented a whale whistle for sailboats by now (like a deer whistle for cars).
Now, when we see a whale spout, we both flinch! We'd be happy if we never, ever saw another whale but unfortunately, in these waters at least, they seem to be everywhere...
P.S. NOTE: Abby Normal is a possible WHALE MAGNET. Yesterday, as we were motoring our way to Craig, Alaska, (which is where we are now) we came upon a sleeping humpback. I kid you not. It was about 70 feet away from us on our starboard side. When they sleep, they hover at the surface and take what would appear to be shallow breaths, ie. no spraying. When we first spotted it, we didn't realize it was sleeping so Brad tried the trick of full reverse so the noise made by the cavitation would jolt a reaction from it. It didn't. That's when we realized it was in a deep sleep. So at least we didn't have to worry about it swimming along and coming up underneath us. No threat. What a relief!
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