It was a wet and windy spring day and my family and I were headed for a week long family break, after firstly experiencing a brief brush with disaster……
The ferry was a large, white painted car ferry. After Dad parked the car where he was directed, we headed up to the guest lounge for a hot chocolate and snacks. Outside the rain pelted against the windows, but we felt warm and secure, if a little queasy after the first fifteen minutes of “up and down”.
Everyone around us was talking. Funny how some people don’t care who hears what they are saying, while others lean together like they are hatching some kind of nefarious plan. Others were chasing after runaway toddlers, posing for photos, lining up for coffee, tapping on their electronic devices, snoozing or had their head in a newspaper. Distracted as they were, I was probably the only one on board who happened to be looking in the right direction when the huge whale surfaced alongside us.
At first I thought it was a wave, but it kept on rising and I could see the water running off it’s black, barnacled hide as it rose. Then I saw a spurt of water as it opened its blowhole to take a breath. I stared, stunned, as it rolled gently onto its side, looked at me with one eye, then sank peacefully below the surface.
“Da, Da, Dad?” I stuttered (I don’t usually stutter, but sometimes you are just so shocked that you can’t get the words out).
“Dad” I repeated more forcefully. Dad looked up from trying feed my five month old brother his pureed apple. Why do they think babies like pureed apple so much that’s all they eat for their first weeks? I mean, try some pureed mandarin, or chips, or sausage roll, or something with a bit of flavor.
“What’s up hon, I’m kinda busy”. I could see he was preoccupied, but I thought he might like to see the whale.
“There’s a whale, out there,” I pointed out the window to the rough water, where obligingly the whale stuck a tail fin out of the water, for just an instant. Of course Dad missed it. He looked away from me and out the window, and noted the wild water, white caps and no whale.
“But just wait, it will come back again,” I protested. Just then, Tom chose that moment to regurgitate his pureed apple (Ewww) and bang, I lost Dad’s attention again.
I turned away and moved closer to the window, to get a good look at the creature when it resurfaced. I wondered what sort of whale it was. We had friends who were right into whales, and I had heard about humpbacks, blue whales (the largest), orcas (the fiercest) and sperm whales (go on, giggle if you must). But from what I knew , this was probably a Southern Right Whale. These migrated along the southern Australian coastline during winter and sought sheltered bays to give birth to their young.
Soon enough, the whale rose again, but this time it wasn’t alone! My mouth dropped open as I counted three, four, five sprays as they breached the water’s surface simultaneously, then sank again below, and then promptly another few whales came up for air. This time I wasn’t the only one who noticed.
“Holy cow, would you look at that!” exclaimed an elderly gentleman sitting further down the lounge from us. Dad looked up again, looked at me and then out the window. He witnessed a final three sprays, then the final tail flick as the last of the pod of whales sank out of sight. Finally, he got excited too, and handed Tommy back to Mum, who had been reading to my sister Sally.
Others had noticed and we all lined up against the windows on the side of the ferry. There came a cry from the other side, and that’s when I realised that we were surrounded by these enormous creatures. My stomach started to feel a little more unsettled.
That was when the ferry engines stopped. Suddenly. We were stranded in the water halfway between Portsea and Queenscliff with no power, surrounded by dozens of whales.
The loudspeaker bell rang signifying an announcement: “Passengers please note” began a calm female voice, “you may wish to view the pod of whales that are currently swimming by us. These are Southern Right Whales currently migrating from Antarctica to the southern coast of New South Wales.” I felt chuffed that I had guessed correctly and was only disappointed that I hadn’t shared my knowledge with anyone else before the announcement so no-one else knew how clever I was.
“It appears that their sonar has interfered with our sounding equipment, and we will await their passing before restarting the engines and continuing across the bay.”
“What is “sounding equipment?” I heard the girl next to me ask.
“Thank God they seem to have things under control” someone else commented.
All around was a general sigh of relief and sounds of awe as the whales continually rose and fell beneath the waves around us.
As I turned to explain what sounding was to the girl, the announcement bell rang again.
“Could all children please present themselves at the life jacket stations situated around the lounge, where a crew member will be passing out life jackets. “
A roar of questions arose from the crowd at this, almost drowning out the remainder of the message. “Please note this is only a safety procedure, there is no reason to panic.”
“Then tell us what’s going on,” shouted a man in a suit, who until now had been reading the Age with his head phones tucked discreetly into his ears.
“Ssshh” the crowd turned to listen for further instructions.
I took Tom from my mum and grabbed Sally’s hand, and went over to the life jacket station in the centre of the ferry.
I guess it’s as good a time as any to confess that I can’t swim. My already queasy tummy was joined by jelly legs as I considered the possible reasons why we might need life jackets as a “safety procedure”. They all ended with me panicking despite the calm lady announcer’s advice.
Six year old Sally had been having swimming lessons since she could walk, and could confidently swim laps of the pool, and dive down to pick up stuff from the bottom. I was starting to wonder why my parents didn’t force me to continue lessons (my arguments for stopping were terrible really), when a gruff looking ferryman handed me a life jacket then turned to my sister to help her strap hers on.
I looked at it. I get where the head is supposed to end up, through the hole, but all the ties and –
“This is RIDICULOUS!” the obnoxious Age reader in the suit started up, and a couple of the ferry employees hurried over to him, but a growing number of the grown ups had started grumbling.
“What’s going on?”
“they wouldn’t get out the life jackets if there wasn’t some threat”
“Are those whales or sharks?”
“Are we sinking? Does it look like we are lower in the water? Madge, what do you think, are we lower now, or – oh my god, are we listing over to one side? I feel off balance!”
“Don’t panic” indeed, I thought. I looked out the window at the whales who were now milling around us, rather than travelling. Had they sensed the panic on board? I had heard that whales and dolphins were sensitive to human emotions. What were they doing? I tried again to count them and realised they were evenly distributed all around the ferry.
I looked beyond the whales towards the distant shore, trying to gauge how far away it was, and if my father could swim that far and tow us kids along with him, bobbing along in our life jackets. Like bait, I thought, then quickly drew my gaze away turning towards the front of the ferry.
Then I stopped, frozen in horror. Again everyone else on board was busy panicking, putting on life jackets, and creating a general hubbub, and not looking outside. But I am sure the ferry captain (safely hidden away upstairs) had seen what I was seeing now.
Port Philip Bay is a relatively safe calm harbor, entered through two points called “The Rip”, which is actually quite dangerous to traverse, but through which all ships and tankers must pass in order to deliver goods to Melbourne. The ships are guided through the Rip by a “pilot” captain, who hops on board the ship outside the heads, drives through and takes the ship up the channel that leads to Melbourne’s wharfs.
Some of those ships and tankers are very large and I recall playing on the beach as a kid, watching the ships go by, then “surfing” the waves created by the propellers that would come ashore in about twenty minutes time.
I never realised, until now, just how big those ships were.
Our ferry had stopped right in the middle of the channel, and there, bearing down on us with implacable speed, was the largest container ship that had ever entered the bay. My queasy tummy fell through the jelly legs and hit the floor. I turned to get mum’s attention and accidentally looked out the windows on the other side of the ferry. THERE WAS ANOTHER SHIP COMING FROM THE OTHER DIRECTION!!!
We were going to become the vegemite in a supertanker sandwich unless the captain could get the ferry started again immediately!!
Then something truly amazing happened.
I felt the ferry lift from the water and start to move again. I shook my head to clear it out. No, the engines had definitely not restarted.
Everyone looked out the window and noticed what I had seen, started shouting, then the Age man looked down and yelled “My god, it’s the whales!!”
Yes, the whales, those massive creatures of myth, legend and hype, had sensed the danger we were in, and for some unknown reason, taken it upon themselves to remove us to safety outside the channel. It was a rough ride – you try being passed from one back to another - as the whales tag teamed their rescue effort. But within minutes, we were safely resting back on the water, and hugging each other as the passing tanker ships tooted loudly and deeply.
Then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the whales sank below the surface of the water, and we never saw any of them again. I had somehow ended up lying on the floor, and sat up dazed.
“Are we ok?” I asked.
Mum smiled indulgently at me. “Of course honey, you saw all the whales, then fainted clear away.”
I looked at her with a frown. “What?”
“Yes, you turned white as a sheet, then green, then Dad caught you as you fell to the ground. You missed all the excitement. They rode alongside us for a while, then took off to follow the wake of that big ship out there.” She pointed to a ship that was heading out towards the Heads, rapidly shrinking in the distance. I looked the other directly, but there was no other ship heading away in the opposite direction towards Melbourne. My stomach started feeling queasy again.
“How’s the girl, would you like some water,” it was the lady announcer with the calm voice. She looked over mums shoulder and handed me a water bottle. I took a careful sip and looked around. The Age reader was calmly sitting in the same seat with his nose in the news, and no life jackets in sight. “I fainted?” I asked.
“Yes, you silly thing, but I think you are ok now. Just a bit overexcited and perhaps a little seasick”.
That’s when I vomited.
To this day, I am not sure what made me more disoriented - the motion of the ferry as we completed our trip across the bay, or the total embarrassment of FAINTING at the sight of a few whales. Or having a hallucination while under the influence of both of these things.
I never told my family what I had experienced during that trip. Needless to say, I voted for driving around the bay on our way home from that week’s holiday, under the excuse of doing some shopping in Melbourne city on our way back home. The money we saved on the ferry trip was spent in my favourite city department store, on me of course.
Hehehe.