An Unusual Experience at Sea
It was early one morning in February 1972 when Mayoral and his partner
Santos Luis Perez set out to fish in Laguna San lgnacio. Hundreds of gray whales
were swimming in the three-mile-long, one-mile-wide inlet. This was usual
between December and April, for the whales breed in the protected inlets of
Baja, the final destination of their annual 6,000-mile migration from the
Arctic. Mayoral and Perez stayed as for as possible from the spouting (喷涌)
creatures, because the whales were said to smash boats with their powerful
flukes (鲸尾的叶). Mayoral, who had 16 years’ experience at sea, knew no one who had
been close to a healthy gray whale and lived.
As Mayoral rowed
to catch the outgoing (退出去的) tide, he saw, straight ahead, a whale approaching.
Heart pounding, the 31-year-old turned the little wooden boat and pulled hard
for shore. Try as he might, however, he could not row over the huge beast. In
moments, it overtook them. Expecting the worst, the fishermen dropped to their
knees and made the sign of the cross. The whale raised its nine-foot head out of
the water and looked at them. Then, remarkably, it began to rub gently against
the boat.
Sinking and resurfacing(重新露出水面) on opposite sides of
the boat, the whale continued its gentle rubbing for almost an hour. At
first the men prayed, frozen in fear. But gradually Mayoral ’s terror gave way
to curiosity. He was tempted to reach out and touch this oddly unthreatening
monster, but a lifetime of caution kept him still.
At last,
having finished with whatever its purpose had been, the whale disappeared below
the surface. Some time passed before either man spoke. Then they headed home. To
his wife, Mayoral said only, "No fish today."
But word spread
through the cluster of small wooden houses near the salt-water lake. A strange
thing had happened: one of the whales had tried to touch the men, and the men
had returned unharmed. Why
In nights to come, by faint kerosene
lamps, Mayoral and Perez told the story. They and other fishermen struggled to
understand. What did the whale want |
