As promised, Perry and I went on an adventure that we will never forget. Before we knew it, our group had grown to 7--counting Perry, of course. It was a bit sketchy where we might find the whale. We knew it was past Yona before before Ipan at Turtle Cover. My students use to talk about going swimming at Turtle Cove, but I never had figured the exact location.
We all piled in two vehicles and headed south past Yona. Eventually, we had decided we had gone too far, so I told the girl driving to pull in to a house, and I'd go ask. It's not everyday you approach complete strangers and say, "Excuse me, could you please tell me where we can find the dead whale?" The people were kind enough to give me excellent directions, so our journey continued.
Once we found ourselves on the correct booney road, we were faced with....
Do we dare continue after such a threatening sign? But since the bottom sign said...
I yelled, "Let the trespassing begin!" (After all, I was with 2 lawyers and another law intern. I figured they could talk their way out of whatever we mess we got in. Plus, we had Perry. He'd keep us safe!)
We parked our car next to all of the other trespassers, when we faced our next obstacle...
We had come this far, there was no turning back! So on we trekked stepping, over this silly little pole in our way, and waved at the kind people in the house whose yard we were walking through.
We were quick to thank them for letting us pass (like they had a choice, right?). If you can't tell by this pic, this house is on a cliff, so we had to hike down the road to get to the water's edge. Excitement was building from all of us!
Here is our group as we journey down the road!
Everyone we passed along the way was so friendly. It was like this was the most exciting, community building activity Yona has seen in years...all at the expensive of a not-so-lucky whale.
When we reached the bottom, more signs of warning...
But alas, Perry and I made it! And then we were saddened that the whale was far away, the tide was up, the current was strong, and the police and marine biologists were there to stop any stupid idea I had stirring in my head. (I had even brought reef shoes--I was so prepared to walk out to it!)
Yes, the blob in the distance to the right of my head is the beached whale. He is about 50 feet long and weights approximately 40 tons. His back is to me with its tail facing the camera. His head is actually hanging over the reef, so the marine biologists can't get to it. Today they took tissue and blood samples. They hope to get to his organs on Wednesday.
Perry took a picture of the rest of the group with the whale in the background.
And here is the whale up close.
Today, was actually full of several exciting adventures, but in case my life lacks for exciting, I'll wait until later. However, there's a fairly large chance I'll be going back to the whale!
Very Cool!
ReplyDelete