KEVIN’S musings

Aloha Gang,

1- Just a few observations out here in the big , big, big, Pacific Ocean. No wonder they thought the Earth was flat for so long - even 170 feet above the water, standing on the topmost deck; you still cannot see the curve of the earth. Just flat open water. The guys that traveled this water in canoes, galleons, rafts (kon-tiki), Schooners, etc....were every bit as brave as Astronauts! Plus, they did not know what lived in the sea. They had all kinds of myths - sea monsters and the like.

I often wonder ( which makes me wonder!) if back then - some of their reports were really accurate descriptions of an ocean teeming with life. A guy found a giant squid last year that measured 90 feet ( not a typo! 90 flipping feet!) and another guy took a deep sea picture of one that measured 175 feet! Maybe the "sea monsters" they saw - were giant battles between the squids and the sperm whales. The whales would have had to come to the surface to breathe, bringing their giant squid opponent to the surface with them.

What a tremendous sea battle that must have been to watch. Giant marine gladiators - fighting to the death - in open water, as you stood in awe on your ship - which was less than half the length of the combatants. Magellan's biggest ship was only 95 feet long - from bow to stern. So, both the whales and the squids would have dwarfed them. In a battle to the death, between super strong opponents - it must have been "no holds barred". A whale's tail muscle ; is the strongest muscle known on earth. A squid must have had to avoid it, and the crushing teeth and jaws of the sperm whale, while being strong enough to hold the whale "down" - in order to drown it.

That means the squids tentacles had to be strong enough to hold down the whale - tail and all. They have measured tentacles at over 30 meters and as thick as three feet. On the giant ones of the past, those numbers might be doubled or even tripled. Holy cow. Plus, squids use colors in their skins cells to communicate with each other in the deep. They have over 10,000 color combinations - look at the language we have created with just 26 letters. Maybe they have a much more complicated language then we do. The eyes on a giant Squid are over a meter in diameter - which means they can probably tell the difference between indigo and purple and black - where as most of us men have a pair of navy blue - black socks. LOL Just wondering if they both (whales and squids) have "languages" we cannot even guess at. One based on color, and the other based on sound. A whale's "hearing spectrum" is much larger than ours. In fact, we "hear" less than one percent of the range of whales. So, our Opera singers would look like pikers to the whale singers. Just wondering.

2- This morning, we saw a pod of dolphins, over a half-mile long trail of them. One of the Naturalist's on the ships once told Kathy and I, that for every dolphin you see jumping on the surface, there are six below the surface. That would mean there were about 1,200 dolphins in that pod! For a few moments, I looked like Kathy watching her sea gulls. I wasn't thinking, or wondering, I was just staring. So very many of them. Just leaping and playing (you can tell they were playing, because when they leap out of the water and they are going somewhere - they have smaller "arcs" to their jumps, and they never spin, or try for height, or body slam-) this group was leaping and tumbling and twisting and turning, and somersaulting, just having a dolphin ball. Since we are only doing about 15 knots, they easily kept pace with us for over an hour.

I did stop watching after about 15 minutes or so - I am not my Kathy, who can stay in the moment for hours. It was fun though. It made me wonder, if dolphins didn't use to roam the sea, like Buffalo used to roam the Great Plains. What must it have been like, to see "herds" of Dolphins in the millions? In old accounts, it used to take three and four days for a Buffalo herd to cross in front of a train. Literally millions of them. I bet Dolphins were like that at one time in the sea. How cool would that have been to see?

It is a cold steel grey day out here today. Foreboding. Not a day you would want to be out in a small boat. Not al lot of wave action, but, rainy and cold. Still we saw Dolphin's.

Well, I just felt like writing a little bit - since I am not on the porch to actually talk to you folks. I will be home in just two more weeks. Much better than Dolphins - are the sight of my wife, and my friends just sitting around enjoying the evening. See you all soon. Aloha Kevin at sea.

Copyright© 2000 by Kevin Hughes

Walk with me, Daddy

They

Maunakea

Ten easy ways to improve your relationship