Leviathan or The Whale

life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the Earth.
    Henry Beston,
The Outermost House
, 1926

    In the late winter and early spring the Center’s research vessel
Shearwater
sails out to measure the levels of zooplankton in the bay. The theory is that these levels are accurate indicators of whether this habitat can support the whales. If the count rises above 3,750 organisms/m 3 , then the density of oil-rich cope-pods and other colourless animals–each looking, under the microscope, like little watery extraterrestrials as they row themselves in eccentric circles–will sustain the population. If not, any whale calling on this historic feeding ground will find it wanting and move away. From such minute and methodical study, leviathans follow.
    Zipped and velcro’d into a padded, astronaut-like survival suit to forestall my death from hypothermia should I tumble over the side of the boat, I sign away any claims to public liability and, duly approved by the federal government, I climb the metal ladder to the
Shearwater’s
upper deck, facing the bright sun and chill wind. Despite instructions on how to focus just below the horizon and see with my peripheral vision, the unchanging surface and the sea’s motion lulls me into a kind of sleep. ‘There you stand, lost in the infinite series of the sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves,’ as Ishmael says, watching for whales from the mast-head, ‘everything resolves you into languor’.
    Nothing breaks the monotony, not even a bird. It is as if the whole world had been chilled. After six hours’ searching, my eyes begin to ache. Everything is flat, almost soporific in the icy winter air. The long windsock-like sample nets trailing emptily from the stern prove a negative: there is not enough food here for whales.
    It is not a good sign. Cold water holds more oxygen, and so supports more food than southern seas, but rising temperatures have driven plankton north by a latitude of ten degrees, while warming oceans absorb more carbon dioxide, acidifying the whales’ environment. The spotter plane circling overhead sees not so much as a blow, and the sun and wind burn my face for looking. Perhaps we were just not worthy that day.
    Three months later, I sailed on the
Shearwater
again. It was early May, and the right whales had not appeared in any numbers; the plankton counts remained frustratingly low. But then Stormy reported a change in the circumstances.
    From Provincetown’s harbour, the boat made for the western side of the bay, eight or ten miles towards Plymouth. We sat on the upper deck, watching porpoises slip through the water, fleet and shy; it was easy to see why sailors called them sea pigs as they snorted and shuffled through the waves. Then we saw something else: a low dark shape gliding along the surface. It seemed almost inconsequential; but as we drew closer, I realized it was a right whale. Slowly but surely, the animal was moving like a lawnmower, purposefully harvesting the now plankton-rich waters, called here by some collective memory, or perhaps by smelling or even hearing its food. As the
Shearwater
closed the distance between, I put down my field glasses and looked on in amazement.
    One, two, three, four, five whales now appeared around us, baleen plates glinting in the sun like enormous musical instruments. Suddenly their incongruous beauty was revealed, the strange bonnet at the top of their heads, covered in pale growths like lichen on a tree. As they floated, buoyed up by their bulk, they looked more like plants than animals, or maybe shiny rocks, kept glossy by the water running over them. Only behind and below was their power evident, their broad flukes barely breaking the surface, effortlessly manœuvring their bodies.
    They were giant, living jigsaw puzzles: no matter how hard I looked, I could not grasp the entirety of the creatures, the sense of their structure, the components from which they were made. It was as if they were shifting in and out of focus. As we came up behind one animal, I saw how broad was its back; how it shelved out from its spine like a great table, and I could imagine why Brendan the navigator and his monks landed on a whale and, presuming it to be an island, lit a fire and said Mass in thanks for their salvation.

    Abruptly, one animal approached the boat, so close that Stormy–who was standing on the bowsprit, held out over the waves–could have reached out and patted its rough head like