Marine mammals like this humpback whale are protected by federal law. Be sure to give them their space on the water. Photo courtesy Wikipedia
September 2024
By Jack Farrell
It was seven a.m. on a hot, hazy morning in July at the Burge Dock in Portsmouth. My program of becoming a kinder and gentler captain was struggling that morning in the face of yet another late food shipment for Star Island. Three times a week in the height of the summer we take from five to nine thousand pounds of groceries and supplies aboard the Shining Star to feed and care for the 400 people living on the island. When the food truck comes late, I have to step in to help the driver get the 300 or so cases down to the boat on a hand truck where they are loaded into lift bags to be craned up onto the pier at the other end of the trip. My arrangement with the island explicitly states that I am not required to load any freight, but if I don’t step in to help, the boat can’t leave on time and the rest of the day becomes a cascade of missed departures and frustration. And the physical exercise is good for me. So, I grab one of the supplier’s nice aluminum hand trucks from the driver and start down the ramp with five cases of potatoes and a box of ripe blueberries.
The worn wooden ramp is slippery with the morning dew. I leave one hand on the hand truck and let the other one grasp the round iron rail on the gangway as I lean uphill against the load and slowly make my way down to the float dock. The driver follows behind me with a similar load, but he fails to notice the slippery surface. His feet slide out from beneath him about half way down, and the loaded hand truck completes the descent unattended. Five cases of ice cream slide off the truck onto the float dock at the base of the ramp, but the nice aluminum hand truck veers to the right, off the edge of the float dock, and sinks to the bottom of Portsmouth Harbor. The driver is bruised and unhappy, but with no serious injuries except for those to his pride. He threatens to walk away from this clearly unsafe situation, citing his union rights against the food distribution company. I am in the midst of talking him out of a rash move when a couple of older women approach us at the base of the gangway.
They are gardening volunteers, burdened with spades and garden trowels, and are scheduled to ride out with us to Star Island for a day of weeding and pruning. One of the women is clearly anxious about the trip. “I’ll need to wear one of your lifejackets today,” she tells me. She has been on the boat before and has never made such an urgent request.
“Why do you need a life jacket today?” I ask, wondering if I missed something on the marine weather forecast.
“Well, what if that mad whale rolls the boat over? I don’t swim that well, and I know he’s still out there.”
“That,” I said, “is an irrational fear. That whale is not big enough to roll this boat over, if he’s even still around, and we’re not going to get close enough to him to find out, anyway.” Somewhat reassured, she loaded her tools on the boat and took a seat close to the helm.
For three weeks in July, a juvenile humpback whale chased huge schools of menhaden (aka “pogies”) all the way up the Piscataqua River as far as the Naval Shipyard. I’ve been paying close attention to this stretch of water for over 40 years, and I have never seen a whale of any species so close to shore and so far up the river. (In June, a whale of the same description ventured into Gosport Harbor and nearly beached himself (herself?) on the Star Island shore while feasting on a huge school. I suspect it was the same whale.)
For years the once-abundant menhaden have been few and far between, but this season the waters are often frothing with their presence. Food sources like this attract a variety of predators, and the juvenile humpback was not one to miss an easy meal. For a time, he cruised the mooring field at Pepperrell Cove at Kittery Point, venturing all the way to the town docks and attracting onlookers from both land and sea, which vexed the already overburdened harbormaster and his associates with questions, phone calls and requests for interviews. The scene echoed the movie “Jaws.”
And then, to complete the “Jaws” analogy better than mere fiction might do, the juvenile humpback found himself in the middle of a group of amateur fishermen chasing the same explosion of pogies. The boats were clearly too close to the feeding whale, who is protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act and should be left alone. But the fishermen persisted. The huge, young, inexperienced creature eventually collided with one of the boats in the midst of the whale’s legitimate pursuit of a good meal of oily menhaden. The fishing boat was rolled over on impact, propelling the two men aboard over the side in dramatic fashion (to be soon rescued by some of their colleagues) while the cell phone cameras rolled.
Videos of the scene went immediately viral, and the “New York Post” picked up the story with the headline “Angry whale attacks fishing boat.” Really?
Many years ago in my old wooden Hinckley Pilot, we took an overnight cruise from Portsmouth to Provincetown, some details of which have been previously presented here. After a hard night’s thrash through rainy squalls, we entered Provincetown Harbor at dawn, on the fourth of July, picked up a mooring in the inner harbor, and stoked up the woodstove to prepare breakfast. Just as the coffee began to percolate, a pod of Minke whales entered the mooring field. The huge, 25-foot creatures proceeded from boat to boat in the crowded holiday harbor, stopping gently alongside each one to roll their big eyes up for a good look at their human brethren. The experience was unforgettable and heart-stoppingly beautiful.
A few years later, when my young family ventured west to visit the in-laws, also on the fourth of July, I headed out in the old Hinckley past the Shoals and eastward toward Boon Island with the outrageous plan to find a big whale. After hours of tacking out there in the gentle southwesterly, I realized the folly of my quest and turned back toward Kittery Point.
Just at that moment the water was roiled by a surfacing fin whale not 20 yards off. I headed up and jogged along slowly for a half hour or so as the 65-foot gentle giant put fishing on hold and sailed along with me, carefully and just far enough away to avoid collision, until it finally sounded and was not seen again. (Finbacks can stay submerged for over a half hour.)
The chance to have a brief look into the world of these magical, intelligent and clearly feeling creatures is a gift beyond many seen in most ordinary lives. While these creatures are protected by the Marine Mammal Protection Act, it is up to those of us on the water in the given moment to respect the fact that we are the ones intruding into their environment, and to give them room to feed and to be wild and safe. That young whale off Portsmouth was not angry. He was just hungry.
When the food truck for Star Island arrived again late last week, the driver saw his barnacle-encrusted, formerly nice aluminum hand truck leaning against the shed at the dock. A diver had come by to clear lobster gear off the prop of the Shining Star and had salvaged the truck from the murky harbor bottom for me. “Thanks for getting my truck back,” he said.
“My truck now,” I replied, as the kinder, gentler captain gave way to the reluctant curmudgeon lurking just beneath the surface.
Jack was the manager at Star Island for many years. He currently manages major construction and utility projects there and provides all-season boat service to the island (average 250 trips per year) for luggage, food, employees, supplies and guests. He also runs Seacoast Maritime Charters, LLC providing year-round private charter boat service and marine logistics to the general public, now in the Shining Star. He still enjoys cruising in his classic Ted Hood sloop, Aloft, and teaching skiing at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine.
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