Tag: whales

Whales, Dolphins and Why I Love My Twitter Friends

Jeffe Kennedy / / Blog

I arrived at the RWA conference early Tuesday morning, expressly to spend the day with my Twitter friend, Branli Caidryn.

Not that Twitter is good for anything but talking about what we had for breakfast. (Blueberry pancakes, thank you – with pineapple on the side.)

At any rate, Branli, whose sci fi book, Project Horizon, will be coming out ANY MINUTE NOW, picked me up at the hotel for a day of yakking about writing and to see whales. Now, I’ve been on a few whale-watching tours in my day. (You can imagine me saying this in a wheezy voice while you pretend you didn’t see me pour whiskey into my coffee mug.) I’ve been on tours out of San Francisco, Oregon and Alaska. I’ve glimpsed some whales. I’ve seen dolphins, too.

Nothing like this.

The morning fog burned off leaving us out on the water on a gloriously sunny day. And we saw blue whales feeding. Now, it’s kind of hard to see whales because, you know, they’re under water, duh. But you get pieces of them. That I tried to capture on my iPhone 4s, without dropping it in the water. Quite the feat, I’ll have you know. 

The video doesn’t capture how fabulous this was. We watched the whales feed for what felt like hours, their backs and flukes churning into sight.

On the way back to port, dolphins escorted the boat in.

Magic!

Afterwards, we enjoyed a fabulous lunch overlooking the ocean. Just the kind of thing I love.

Thank you, Branli, for a perfect day!

Smoke in the Valley

admin / / Blog



There was a controlled burn yesterday in the Santa Fe National Forest. We could see smoke billowing up to the east of us all day. They’re good here, though – they put up highway signs and send tweets telling us that’s the case. Over night, the smoke all settled down into the valley.

It smells like a campfire today. Only without the marshmallows.

I’ve been having different dreams the last couple of nights. Unusual images. Monday night I dreamed that David and I were driving over a bridge, the kind of high, arching white ones that span the waters between the mainland and barrier islands. David was driving. I looked down to see that there were whales teeming in the water below. Great blue whales, hundreds of them. They raised their heads out of the water, splashed their tails, rubbed noses, feeding and frolicking. David asked me if I wanted to pull over to take pictures and I said yes. As I was walking back to the car to change lenses (I know – look at me, even dreaming about changing lenses now!) I saw David talking to our daughter Lauren, her guy Damion and our grandson, Tobiah. I was surprised to see them there, to see there were tons of people there now, and Lauren said, oh yes, people were coming from all over to see the whales, such an extraordinary event.

Last night, the dream seemed more like my usual quest dream. I think we were running around saving kidnapped people. There were Russians involved and a maximum security prison. Your dreams are like this, too, right? Anyway, at the end of the dream, David reached into his bag and pulled out this enormous black frog. From this drawing you should conclude that, yes, my MS Paint skills suck, and that it looked like no real frog on earth. It was glossy and turgid, like one of those balloons you can get at the grocery store.

The frog looked unhappy, so I told David to put it in the sink and fill the basin with water. The frog lay submerged in the water, watching us with crystal blue eyes and smiling.

Yes. Frogs can smile. Especially the big, black ones.

At any rate, I’m taking this as things welling up from my subconscious. Amazing creatures, joyfulness and restoration, emerging from dark and hidden places.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Though I’m willing to entertain other interpretations?