Saved by Whales - World Voyages of the Ship Destiny's Dreams

The ocean closed over Estrella's head. Under the water large shapes heard the splash. Their voices sang long "OOOooos" and made rapid clicks.

A 49 foot long whale glided under the waves. Her baby whale calf floated next to her. More whales gathered in the undersea world.

Then water bubbled around the teen-age girl. Something nudged her back up into the air. Then she could breathe.

The thing moved against her legs. It felt slippery. She was not alone.

"Was it alive?"

“What could it be?”

"Would it hurt her?"

Estrella choked on sea water, with her heart exploding, and her eyes burning from the salty ocean.

“Whoosh. SSShhhhh. Splash.” A spray of salty water flew through the air.

Two minutes ago Estrella was leaning over the wooden railing of the sailing ship called Destiny's Dreams in the 1800s.

Estrella's name meant Star. She was voyaging on the sailing ship Destiny's Dreams with her parents, two sisters, and three brothers. They had sold their farm off the jungle coast to the south and they were going to San Francisco to start a new life.

"Why do we have to leave?" Her tears flowed and she cried when they left.

"Everything I love is there. My friends. What future will I have in some strange place far away?"

Estrella did not know this yet, but they would later leave San Francisco's crowds and sail again to a wilderness farther north.

Now Estrella's eyes were wide, and she gasped, feeling her body sink below the ocean waves again. And then...

Over one hundred fifty years later the words on the page of the old sailing journals seemed to dance off the paper for the ten year old boy reading them out loud to the others.

“A sea monster.” The smallest listener’s mouth dropped, eyebrows raised, eyes round.

Light beamed into the attic of the Mystical Coast Lighthouse Keeper’s House, and the old wood groaned when a gust of wind hit it.

“Crash. Boom.”

They heard the ocean swells meet the volcanic basalt rocks four hundred feet below the historic 1800s lighthouse and keepers’ house. Outside the attic window, the sea carried the whales of the spring migration.

Their shining gray humps and spouts of spray passed in the waves offshore, near the seaweed kelp beds where they fed. Now the kids were reading about whales in the old journals from the ship.

“Here. Drawings. The whale. And a lady. A ship too.” Lucas showed the page to the other kids crouched in a circle.

“Don’t tell anyone. These journals are our secrets.” The group nodded, eyes wide, lips curved into smiles.

They found the faded journals in a scarred, wooden sailor’s trunk in the corner of the attic on a rainy day in winter on the stormy coast of the Pacific Northwest.

The covers were labeled, “Voyages of the Destiny’s Dreams, by Anya, Storyteller of the Blue Lantern.”

“Keep going. More.” The words floated in the dim attic and Lucas turned back to squint at the pale ink on the yellowed pages. His voice gathered momentum and everyone leaned closer.

Earler that morning, near the ship, a mountain of gray rose from the beating blue heart of the ocean. The girl called Estrella pointed.

"Everyone! Quick! Come here."

A spout of water blew upward from the waves. A gray hump appeared with a smaller grey form next to it.

“Ssshhh. Boom. Splash.” It was the voice of the ocean.

A mouth like a cave broke the water's surface. Spray flew up and drifted in the air.

“Gasp. Whoosh.”

The whale breathed, spyhopped up high to look around, then slapped the water hard and sank under the waves.

“Gurgle. Whoosh. Snap.” The whale’s tail fluke fins broke the water surface, paused, and struck the water.

It was a migrating gray whale and her baby whale calf born in the tropical waters to the south. Mama Whale bounced the calf to the surface with her nose. Sometimes she used her sidefin. She knew her baby needed to breathe air to stay alive.

“ Click. Click. Click. OOOoooo.” Mama Whale’s clicks became one long rolling click and then she spoke in her language. Beneath the sea, the other whales were conversing too with their long, wavering tones and clicks.

Baby and Mama slipped along together in their dance of touching with nuzzles and cuddles.

“”Click. Oooo.” Their bonding grew stronger with the touching and underwater singing. Mama Whale’s heart was filled with love for her little baby, only 17 feet long.

Mama's 45 foot length and Baby’s length parted the water when they surfaced for air.

Beneath the sea, hundreds of miles away, a small earthquake broke the ocean floor apart. Vibrations rippled through the water and a large swell on the surface became taller and stronger.

The swell rolled in from the horizon, lifted the 1800s wooden sailing ship, and then let it slide down into the valley between swells.

Water splashed, the ship leaned way over, and Estrella's hands lost their grip on the railing. Then her feet slipped off the wet deck.

Cool water closed over her.

"What is happening?" Her heart pounded like it was bursting. Thoughts raced. Estrella's throat tightened. Water came into her nose.

Her head bobbed up to the surface and she coughed.

The ship swooshed past.

No one had seen her fall off.

Her shoes, skirts, and shirt wrapped her. The weight pulled her under the waves. Her lungs were bursting. Air. Air. She must have air.

Then something bumped her. Her face came above the water.

Mama Gray Whale lifted her new found second baby so the strange looking whale calf could breath. Mama's maternal whale instincts surged.

Whales must surface regularly to breathe because they cannot breathe under water. So Mama Whale began carrying the strange creature along with bumping her own calf to the surface for air.

The Estrella gasped. Then the water closed over her again. She held her breath.

"Had she died?"

"Was this life in another world?"

She caught a glimpse of wobbly gray next to her.

"What was that?"

Estrella's body pulsated, heart drumming fast and hard.

She was lifted to the surface and carried there. Her breaths came fast and loud. It felt so good. Air.

Her wild eyes moved. She screamed.

"Wait. Help!"

Estrella saw the stern of the ship and it's three masts of square white sails moving away.

"They don't know." She squirmed in the water.

She caught her breath. Her chest hurt.

"I'm here. Waaaaiiit. Hhheeeeelllp!" Her strangled shouts mingled with the waves.

Overhead the sun of the west coast of what would be known as California shined with a warm spring heat.

Mountains rose several miles away, green from winter's moisture, but with brown tones of summer emerging.

Stepping on thick lines, high in the ship's main mast sails, First Mate Adelberto eyes scanned the ocean. He thought he heard someone calling.

He pulled a halyard to adjust the angle of the sails on their boom, holding on tight. Far below, people on the deck looked like small figures.

The rigging and mast swung and leaned with the swells from side to side. Adelberto's strong arms and hands reached and clung to the rigging.

"What was that?" He turned his head again. "Was it a voice screaming for help?"

His heart bounced, pounded, and shivers ran through his body.

"Eeeee." A weak sound floated on the air.

Adelberto squinted at the rolling, sparkling seas. He blinked in the bright sun.

"There it is again."

His breath caught and stopped. His heartbeat pounded in his ears.

"Boom.Boom.Boom." His pulse leaped.

"Something is out there." He stopped breathing. A quiver shot through his body.

Brown eyes moved on his tan face under black hair, tied back with a red rag. The wiry body twisted and lines around his eyes deepened. Edelberto's dark eyes glistened in the sunlight.

"There. Someone in the water. Whales too."

Then his voice exploded.

"Overboard! Overboard! Someone in the water. Get the surfboat!"

Figures ran on the deck far below, looking tiny in the distance.

"Captain! Over there!" Adelberto pointed.

Out on the ocean, the girl breathed rapidly.

She looked into the ball-shaped, fearless eye framed by folds of wet, gray skin. It looked back at her. The grey whale calf's eye rolled and it examined her curiously.

Estrella's body jerked and shuddered.

Mama Whale carried her newly adopted odd looking calf along with her own two month old calf, both of them on her nose or snuggled on her flipper.

A new bond of caring and protectiveness grew in the Mama whale. She nudged the small being and carried her gently above the waves. The whale's skin felt the slippery skin of the new baby that somehow arrived in Mama Whale's world.

Feelings and responses shot through Mama Whale's brain and she responded. Maternal instincts powered her behavior.

"Ooooooo...oooooo." The Mama Whale sang and emitted some clicks. Other whales clicked and sang back, and glided toward her.

They were all lingering to feed on tiny shrimp in the kelp beds. Humans were not their prey or their food.

The whales' open mouths with strands of baleen in their jaws strained the water and separated the shrimp, who went down a narrow tunnel into the whales depths.

The gentle giants were curious about the new, funny looking, helpless baby calf that Mama Whale carried.

Then Estrella put a hand to touch and stroke the smooth, wet, slippery whale skin beneath her.

"I know where I am. But I cannot believe it," she thought.

She began to trust the whale’s steady rhythm of rising under her and lifting her above the water.

An unexpected friend was rescuing her.

Then she saw the ship on the horizon. The silhouettes of the white sails against the sky seemed to be turning. Time passed and she saw the ship’s image getting larger.

“It’s getting closer. They are coming back for me.”

Estrella's eyes became half closed from fatigue. Relief made her muscles relax.

She rested and rocked with the steady lifts of the whale beneath her. The baby whale calf still eyed her with interest, but the girl was not frightened.

The unlikely friendship with the whales brought her a sense of safety.

The Destiny’s Dreams' sails loomed against the sky like white, puffy clouds full of air. Estrella saw figures lowering a surfboat into the sea. They paddled across the waves toward her.

“What would the whale do now?” She wondered and lifted an arm to wave at the crew in the surfboat.

The paddlers slowed, and the boat approached cautiously. Then she could hear the waves slapping against the wooden sides of the boat and hear voices calling her.

One of the figures on the boat slipped into the water with a flotation device. Lucas was from the islands far to the west, where swimming was a valued skill.

Estrella did not have swimming skills but she kicked and tried to use her arms to paddle.

Becoming one with the sea, Lucas approached, and the whales bobbed in the ocean, unafraid.

Then he was touching her arm, grasping it, and pulling her. Mama whale sank beneath the water with her calf, and the girl floated freely being tugged along by the rescue swimmer.

When they got to the surfboat a blast sounded and the Mama Whale blew from her spout only 20 feet away. Her 45 foot body rose like an island, and her baby whale calf popped up, cuddled next to one of Mama's side flippers.

Estrella tried to whisper “thank you” and the whales disappeared beneath the waves.

Under the sea, the Mama Whale clicked and sent her “OOOooooOOOO” to the other whales to signal them.

Baby Whale made little clicks too and sent a softer “OOOooooOOO.” The other whales listened with curiosity.

Then the water was filled with their conversation and songs.

The whale family headed north with the ship, and sometimes Mama Whale leaped out of the ocean in a spyhop, so she could get a better look.

For the rest of the way to San Francisco, Estrella watched the whales.

Several times Mama Whale with her baby came up to the ship, nudging it, so close Estrella could almost touch her.

Mama Whale, and her siblings, grown babies, and relatives knew Estrella was like family.

It was a turning point in Estrella's life. She never forgot being saved by Mama Whale.

"Everyone! There they are again." Her excited voice would carry across the ship's deck.

Eyes sparkling, mouth curled into a smile, dark hair blowing in the ocean wind, Estrella's enthusiasm was contagious.

Every day she studied the whales with wonder.

Years went by, and Estrella grew to become an expert on ocean life, especially whales.

She arranged voyages for whale watching during whale migrations.

Sometimes a whale came up close to the ship, and nudged it. Estrella would look closely at it.

"Could you be Mama Whale?"

The round whale eye in the folds of slippery gray skin would roll and look at her.

"It is you. I know it. I have always remembered you," Estrella would say.

The whale would slap the flukes of its tail on the sea and roll in the waves.