Called to the Bottom of the World
On the verge of being knocked over, I stood in front of grace and strength - theirs and mine.
As much as I love whales, I have only tried once before across all my travels to go whale watching. I suspect this was as much a function of the seasonality and timing of certain trips as it was my lacking a sense of adventure beyond the plate.
But a solo, self-led trip to Iceland in August 2024 begged me to stretch the atrophied boundaries of my stuck-in-place comfort zone. It was time to finally introduce Mother Nature into my typical itinerary: chef’s counter tasting, boutique shopping, old town exploring, museum hopping. And so, I booked an early Sunday morning whale-watching tour and hoped for the best.
Up until then, adventure and travel had been limited to one night of glamping in the Sahara Desert and sail-boating around the coast of Maui. Both in their own ways terrified me. As this date and trip approached, I grew more excited and admittedly a lot more apprehensive.
The more I thought about it, the whale-tour boat seemed, in comparison to the mammals it was tracking, like a very small vessel. The pictures of the bundled up passengers onboard made me shiver. I couldn’t not catastrophize. There I was bobbing up and down, teeth-chattering, hair dripping in icicles, strapped into my bright orange life jacket, surrounded by hungry orcas churning up the north Atlantic ocean around me.
Maybe I should just stick to wine and shopping?
The universe, however, did me a favor. I made it only as far as settling into a bulkhead window seat on my midnight flight from Chicago to Reykjavik. I had knocked back two Advil PMs and nestled in contentedly against the wall of the aircraft when I was suddenly jolted awake by an announcement to de-plane.
We never even took off that night. Mechanical problems. The flight, whale-watching and my first trip to Iceland were called off somewhere around 1am.
In looking back now, I understand that trip was never meant to be. Rebooking for the next day would have meant missing whale-watching and taking an even shorter version of an already too-short trip. I couldn’t extend the backend as work had become unrelenting. These months, as it would turn out, would be the final ones of a career in corporate marketing.
I gratefully crawled into my own bed that night. Everyone, including and most especially work, thought I was out of the country for the next five days. I felt an enormous sense of relief to have this now unplanned time back just for myself. To just be, for once, still in the peace and quiet of my own home. It felt like a most luxurious gift. That should have told me something.
And was I just a teensy bit relieved not to have to get on that little boat…? Maybe.
Whale-watching, lunch at Ox, a soak in the Blue Lagoon and viewings of the Northern Lights would have to be put on hold until life summoned me back to this part of the world.
I intended to take a more relaxed version of that 2024 trip this summer, but the pull to Cape Town got stronger and stronger. Once I discovered I could do Cape Town in their off-season and still whale watch and wine taste, I made the pivot from top of the world to the bottom.
For the first time since making the bold intention years before, I realized I had not exactly made good on connecting with Mother Nature by traveling her big and bountiful world. It was clear to me, right then, that I had all but neglected to put this fresh lens of reflection into place. I had been too caught up instead navigating the unpredictability in my journey of self-discovery without her.
My only concerted effort to connect up until that point had been hiking to the summit of Slovenia’s Mt. Blegoš. If we count vineyards, more specifically the tasting rooms that look out over them, then my hit rate climbs to dozens of points of contact with Her around the world: Vipava and Goriška Brda in Slovenia, Chianti and Montepulciano in Tuscany, Martinborough and Waiheke in New Zealand. Delicious elaborations aside, I knew Mother Nature still had so much more to share with me if I was willing to finally pay attention.
Thankfully, traveling untethered had me less uptight now, so I wasn’t nearly as nervous for this whale-watching excursion. That is until I started comparing my level of courage and risk to the other passengers onboard. “Comparison is the thief of joy,” as Theodore Roosevelt was rumored to have once famously said.
I could barely go from dock to deck without losing my balance. Now the thought of navigating around the boat as it rocked back and forth, on what I was told was a relatively calm bay that day, seemed much too daunting for this skittish, untethered traveler.
Yet all around me tourists of all ages were moving about in reckless abandon. Tripping over themselves and each other. Even getting reprimanded for not holding on to the railing. What baffled and humbled me was they actually seemed to be enjoying their unsteady terror.
Meanwhile, I was tucked safely inside the front row of the cabin holding on for dear life as if the next gust could suck me out into oblivion.
At the first call of “whale at 12 o’clock!” however, enthusiasm bested fear and I was up and out white-knuckling it – from the interior railing anyway – behind the rest of them. I shifted my focus to the front of the boat.
There they were out in the distance.
Tails slapping. Their blows and spouts.
Southern Right whales.
It was a name that stuck with them even after they were hunted nearly to extinction. “Southern,” because that’s where in the world they were exclusively found. The Southern Hemisphere. And “Right,” because they were the right kind of whale to hunt commercially back in the day. Thankfully, we recognized the greedy error of our ways just in time and course corrected overfishing, turning a devastatingly low population of just 300 Southern Rights into a 15,000 strong fleet today.
I was stunned at the mere sight of them. All I could do was stare, still gripping, and most definitely smiling ear to ear. They redefined incredible.
More whale sightings came between the captain calling for us to mind the rolling swells. He had instructed us before we boarded his craft to stay focused in our excitement. He asked us to stand solid with feet hip-width distance apart and a slight bend to our knees, to always hold on with at least one hand, and to stay vigilant and aware. I guarantee this was one pre-boarding announcement I actually did give my full and undivided attention to.
There were times when the swells looked like they’d tip us over, but we rode them out. Up and down, soft and easy. We defied the laws of gravity and geometry. And I had to admit, kind of fun.
I found myself starting to relax. I can honestly say that at no other time in my life have I had absolutely no control over when and how bursts of joy escaped from me. Too many uninhibited gasps and exclamations to even count.
“Look!” “Oh. My. Gosh.”
This time I wasn’t the outlier. None of us could hold back. We may have all had varying levels of bravado moving about the boat, but we sounded like a well-rehearsed choir when a whale rose to the surface. What a remarkable collective to be a part of.
I felt like I was six years old again. I suddenly realized how much I needed this. How much she, my inner child, who life had all too often repressed, needed this. We were unexpectedly united again. She and I. One voice. One, “look!” One, ”Oh. My. Gosh.”
At one point, the captain recommended I watch from the left side of the boat. He told me the views on that side would be unbeatable if I gave it a minute or two. I swallowed my pride, gripped his arm embarrassingly tight, and we made our way to that intimidating outer ring, the boat’s exterior railing.
Twenty feet, at most, in front of us were mama and her baby whale. A rare white baby Southern Right calf too. Even this close up, whales were still such beautiful, gentle giants. Emanating intelligence and equanimity.
I stood basking in how it truly felt to feel so small and powerless in front of them. Hoping to siphon off just a little of their grace and magnificent strength. These divine creatures were so huge and yet so vulnerable.
I knew the universe had a message for me inside that paradox. I knew it was why I had been called to the bottom of the world to see and feel their presence and elegance. These were a precious few seconds I will never forget.
As the boat turned to head back to the marina, I felt the South African sun warm my wind-burnt face. Mother Nature must have known I’d simply understand the moment she nudged me to look ashore. I looked out and across to the coast, the peaks and the spectacular scale and vastness of it all. And this, I marveled, this was just one tip of one of her continents.
I gripped the edge of my seat – this time – to absorb the overwhelming flow of unbelievable, undeniable gratitude that would have surely otherwise knocked me over.
So huge and yet so vulnerable. Like the rest of her planet I traveled on.
