For Pet's Sake Column

I’ve been on a few whale watching excursions in my life and they always end up the same way: me hanging on to the boat’s railing and willing myself not to throw up. I thought it was a – pardon the pun – fluke the first time I felt queasy, but as I would soon discover, I get seriously seasick every time I set foot on a boat. It’s too bad, because I would love to get up close and personal with one of our area’s most wondrous creatures: the California Gray Whale.

Turns out I might have had better luck watching a whale if I were in the water, rather than on it. Let me explain. Earlier this month, I met Lynne Cox, a world-renown open water swimmer, at the CALM Celebrity Author’s Luncheon at Fess Parker’s Doubletree Resort. The Los Alamitos resident is the author of two books, “Swimming to Antarctica ” and “Grayson.” She revealed to a spell-bound audience that, by the age of 17, she had already swum the Catalina Channel and the English Channel (twice) and was training for the most challenging swim of her life—the frigid waters of Antarctica—when something extraordinary happened: the youthful-looking brunette came face-to-face with a baby gray whale who had become separated from his mother. Lynne waxed spiritual about the wayward whale and the story gave me goose bumps.

“We were from two different worlds – two different beings, with two different lives, and yet somehow we understood each other. He looked so small in the enormous sea and I wanted to protect him somehow.”

But how? Lynne knew she needed to find the calf’s mom before he became dehydrated and died of starvation, but looking for a lone whale in the ocean was a bit like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Already exhausted and cold, Lynne did the only thing she knew how to do: she kept swimming….for five hours. With a belief that thoughts are energy that could penetrate even the deepest waters, she projected positive thoughts to Grayson’s mother. “Please swim this way. Please swim toward Seal Beach . Please swim to the pier.” Lynne wasn’t alone in her quest to reunite the pair. Several fishermen and lifeguards as well as a crowd of onlookers had gathered on the pier in hopes of glimpsing the giant mammal.

Perhaps it was Lynne’s certainty in the power of thoughts that called forth the mother whale because people on the pier began shouting and craning their necks. “I think I see her!,” one little boy shouted. “I think I see his mommy!” Grayson had spotted her too. With a series of clicks and chirps and grunts, he swam to his mother’s side and nestled close. It wasn’t long before they joined a pod of three other whales that were swimming north, bound for Alaska.

Lynne never saw Grayson again, but that didn’t deter her from fantasizing about his fate. She writes: “In winter, spring and fall, when I’m swimming in the ocean and I see whales migrating up or down the California coast, I imagine Grayson is swimming with them. He’s out in front, full of power, strength, and song.”

This touching tale has got me excited about taking another whale watching trip through the Santa Barbara Channel. I hear that the seasickness patch is back on the market after a 13-year absence. Let me just slap one behind my ear before boarding the boat…..

Have you ever had a life-changing encounter with a wild animal or a remedy for seasickness, for that matter? If so, Karen would love to hear about it. Send an email message to her at: karenleestevens@cox.net.