So fellow travelers, the adventures of summer are off to a most auspicious beginning.

Yeah, I know it is hard to even tell what this is . Here look closer

That is part of a whale’s back breaking the surface of the water as it feeds in the channel near Anacapa Island off the coast of California.

It’s actually only a very small part of the whale’s back, because this whale is a blue whale, the largest known living mammal on this planet.

Our boat captain had spotted the whale’s spout about a mile away and was navigating towards it. Thing is, he told us, whales stay under for long periods of time and one can never be quite certain where they will resurface.

This one had just reappeared closer. Our captain said it was “lunge feeding,” skimming close to surface of the water.

A few minutes later the whale burst out of the waves, raising it’s massive head up out of the water just a few yards away from our boat. We could see right into it’s huge mouth, water streaming through the baleen. We could see it’s majestic, glistening eye and, much like the transcendent experience of the night sky in Joshua Tree NP last summer, it was as if that eye drew me through a portal to the existence of every living being.

It was like gazing into the eye of God.

An entire boatful of humans, young, old, captain and crew fell silent.

In an instant, this amazing creature turned and dove back down, seeming endless in length, until it’s tail appeared just barely above the surface and then disappeared back into the depths of dark water in search of more krill. The encounter lastest less than a minute.

Even now, hours later , words still fail but one.

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