Memory or SD card???
This may be a bit of a cliché but it’s true: being at sea is all about experiencing the moment. Nothing matters but the ‘here and now’.
I’m on the sail training ship Pelican of London and experienced something truly remarkable yesterday. We left Dublin and the Liffey behind and had cleared the safe water mark less than half an hour when the ship’s engineer Connor spotted a ‘hughe whale with a big shiny belly’ breach clean out of the water and flop back…
Having just finished my watch I decided to start a transect survey for the Sea Watch Foundation. Conditions were ideal with a calm sea, good light and visibility, and seasoned whale watchers Shauna and Carolina on board.
Over the next two hours I logged 26 sightings of minke whales, two humpbacks and three small pods of dolphins, one of which identified as common dolphins.
It was very special to witness this abundance of large marine wildlife, a source of joy. It’s a privilege seeing, again and again, their sleek bodies glide through the water, surfacing for breath and curling to dive.
I used binoculars to bring the experience closer, but didn’t try to record it on camera. I’m glad about that, because sometimes, special moments are best committed to the memory that captures more than a camera: what comes in through my senses and my emotional response. A very special lady I once met called it ‘the hard drive between the ears’.
