Howard Hall

For more than an hour, I had been swimming hard, struggling to position myself to capture images of a feeding gray whale. Finally, nearly out of film and all but exhausted, I settled on the bottom and watched the whale swim away. Suddenly it turned and swam slowly toward me. When it was five feet away, it stopped and settled on the sand right in front of me. I had worn myself out trying to get this kind of head-on proximity, and now, when I had only a few frames left, the whale seemed to be begging for a close-up.

Moving carefully, I crawled over to look into the tennis-ball-sized eye. It was looking back. The whale raised its nose toward me, and I could see barnacles on it, with their feathery legs straining the water. I looked into that great eye, and a long moment passed. I was certain that if I scratched the whale's nose, it would not be upset. Slowly I reached out and touched the rubbery hide. Gently I scratched. Mesmerized by the close contact with this magnificent creature, I continued to scratch for about thirty seconds. Then I decided I'd had enough, and stopped.

Have you ever scratched the snout of a dog and then, after stopping, had the dog put its nose back under your hand and nudge it for more? Well, that's what the whale did. Problem was that the whale weighed fifteen tons, and when it bumped me with its snout I went flying.

Rolling across the sand like a peanut, I looked up just in time for the whale to whack me with its nose again. I went head over heels. I rolled across the bottom like a football bouncing downhill. My mask filled with water, and I had just managed to get it about half-clear when I went spinning a third time. The game had ceased to be fun. I was in danger of losing my camera if not my mouthpiece. After clearing my mask for the second time, I found myself several feet off the bottom, with the whale moving in for another affectionate blow. I twisted away just in time and went rolling down the whale's flank.

Then it was over. The whale slowly drifted away and vanished from sight. I now know there are two reasons not to scratch a whale on the nose: one, the whale might not like it; two, the whale might like it very much.