A beautiful day on the water

It was sunny and warm, in the mid 70s. The ocean couldn't have been calmer--a beautiful day for whale watching on the Gulf of Maine. I arrived at the Maine Coast Experience at 9:45 and found the skipper of the Miss Moggin readying the boat for the day's trip out to the sound. Desmond Ashman is a sturdy Mainer with a shock of red hair who knows well the ways of the water. Assisting him that day was Barry Snow as mate.

The Miss Moggin is a 36-foot motor boat with a typical Down East Maine hull built by Richard Duffy, owner of the Maine Coast Experience. It was designed specifically for the coastal excursions, which are the hallmark of the lodge situated on Eggemoggin Reach and for which the Miss Moggin was named. I'd been out whale watching with Richard and Desmond on her before. Being low down to the water and easy to get around, I found Miss Moggin much better for photography than the typically crowded big whale-watching boats out of Bar Harbor. On the other hand, its a much longer ride out to Mount Desert Rock and beyond where the whales are to be found.

It was a smooth ride all the way out and it was exciting to be joined by a pod of White-sided Dolphins swimming alongside the boat. A large gathering of Northern Gannets was fishing in a tight cluster, typically diving from high up into what must have been a large school of fish. Shortly, the dolphins sensed this too as they took off in a beeline to join the feast.

Harbor Seals were gathered where they hauled themselves up around the edge of Mount Desert Rock on which stands the lighthouse that welcomes mariners some 28 miles off Mount Desert proper. We eased up to the rocks for some photographs and then pushed off in our search for whales. All around were pelagic birds aplenty, Leach's and Wilson's Storm-Petrels, Greater and Sooty Shearwaters, Atlantic Puffin, Northern Skua and even a Parasitic Jaeger. The bad news was that not a whale was to be found. Radio contact with other whale watchers in the area produced the same result. No whales to be seen this day.

Then Barry, sitting on top of the pilothouse, spotted a dark mass. Desmond eased over to it. It was indeed a Humpback Whale, but something was wrong. It bobbed up and down in the water with a dark line across its back. Unlike the normal breathing activity, it was taking in short breaths and then making a weak dive as its tail just slipped into the water rather than tail up, which is characteristic of Humpbacks. Then we could see that the dark line was a rope running from both sides of its mouth and then each side of the rope was twisted together to run diagonally over the whale's back to the tail which was hog-tied at a 90-degree angle.

This whale was in trouble! Desmond immediately called the Coast Guard. The Point Hammond arrived in just a little more than half an hour as we stayed with the whale to assure that it would be found. Sizing up the situation, the crew of the Point Hammond called for expert help in the form of Bob Bowman of the Center for Coastal Studies who arrived in a Zodiac racing at high speed all the way from the mainland. I scrambled up to the top of the pilothouse with my 300 mm f 2.8 lens and began burning film at an unprecedented rate.

The motion of a boat standing in the water just from the wave action meant that there would be a lot of missed shots from blur even at a fast shutter speed. Ironically its easier to shoot from a moving boat, which is more stable than one pitching and rolling in the waves.

Bowman looked like a wild and determined man as he approached full speed in his Zodiac with a full beard under a broad-brimmed hat. He later described himself as "a Mainer, Biologist and Naturalist all rolled up as one." Immediately he checked in with the Coast Guard and with Desmond to assess the situation. "Until you've figured out what you want to do, it's better not to do anything," Bob remarked.

He said that it was a young Humpback about 30 feet in length and probably a yearling. Meanwhile the whale seemed to be getting weaker with each shallow dive as it struggled against the rope. Each time the whale surfaced Bob moved to it and, leaning well over the side of the Zodiac, observed it under the water with an inverted periscope. After half an hour he laid off to the side to figure his strategy. He had a plan.

A second, smaller Coast Guard cutter had arrived as a back up. The Point Hammond was far too large to approach and assist the entangled whale; however, it did launch a Zodiac to stand by while a guardsman took over the helm of Bowman's Zodiac.

Each time the whale surfaced they approached it and over and over again Bowman tossed a "jam grapple" to try to snare the rope on the whale. The jam grapple looked like a small anchor with long reverse points used to snag lines. After what seemed an eternity, he finally snagged the line under the whale. With the line firmly in hand, it was passed to the crew of the small Coast Guard cutter who tied it to a cleat and pulled in the slack as the whale drew nearer.

The whale moved in tighter and tighter circles, at one point sliding under the tender and back again. Once it made a low rumbling sound as it surfaced. As a naturalist, I'm not supposed to believe that animals have emotions, but to this day I swear it sounded like "H--e--l--p M--e!"

Bowman then used a hook knife fixed on a 10-foot pole to attempt to cut the line coming from the right side of the whale's mouth. He succeeded in cutting the rope most of the way through and as the whale started another dive the rest of it broke away freeing the whale's mouth as it slid off the back and tail. The line, now free and hanging from the cutter's cleat, proved to be 250 feet long with two wire lobster pots at the end. It was this weight that had been dragging the whale down reducing it to a state of exhaustion.

The whale continued to thrash about, but free as it made its way slowly off into the distance. As it did, the indentation on its back where the rope had been was still visible and the tail still bent when it dove. But when Bob came over to the Miss Moggin to give us his analysis of the situation he said that he was satisfied the injuries were minimal and the whale would recover. He did say, however, that it surely would have drowned within a few hours if we hadn't found it when we did.

As Desmond turned the Miss Moggin and headed home at full speed I could finally relax. It was then that I realized it was indeed a beautiful day on the water after all. Not only did I participate in the saving of one of the world's most magnificent creatures, but I was also able to photograph the rescue, proving the old adage "F 8 and be there!" to which I might add "With plenty of film!"

To get there:

Maine Coast Experience Lodge with Daily Adventures HC64, Box 380, Brooklin, ME 04616; 1-888-559-5057; www.mainecoastexperience.com

Bar Harbor Whale Watch Co. 1 West Street, Bar Harbor, ME 0460; 207-288-2386; www.whalesrus.com

John C. Fuller,
FPSA
Norfolk, MA

COPYRIGHT 2002 Photographic Society of America, Inc.
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