Big Miracle by Tom Rose Read Free Book Online Page B

keep the sea from freezing, but the forecast predicted no wind. Without wind, the holes would freeze and the whales would drown before the day was out.
    The ride out to the whales took longer than Oran expected. When the six of them brought their ski machines to a halt ten yards from the snow-covered beach, Geoff and Craig were amazed at how much new ice had formed overnight. The whales were right where the biologists left them. They continued their grim dance. The baby seemed steadier, taking more regular breaths. Billy Adams crept out to see how much farther he could walk. He was able to get much further beyond his earlier footprints. Remarkably, his tracks from yesterday looked as if they were just made—proof of the Arctic’s low humidity and quiet winds. At this rate, the whales did not have long to survive.
    Too excited to lament their fate, Caudle was spellbound just by the sight of the whales and almost dropped his camera. Craig told him to calm down. “Just relax, these whales aren’t going anywhere,” he assured him. “Take your time. Do what you have to do to get ready. The whales don’t have much choice; they have to wait for you.”
    This was new. Here were three animals in their natural habitat that could be treated as though they were props back in his production studio. Normally in the wild, photographers are lucky to get any pictures. Oran calmed himself down and set up his camera. Equipment failure was still his main worry. At forty degrees below, any failure was not only possible, it was likely. Still, even if his gear worked, Oran wasn’t sure how long he could keep it working. It was more than cold; it was dangerous, both for him and his gear. When he breathed the bitter air too deeply, it singed his lungs. In weather this cold, bones become brittle and easily break.
    When Oran looked into the viewfinder, he saw only fog. He knew not to rip the camera apart to get at the droplets of water causing the condensation. There was only one thing to do. He put the camera on the tripod and waited for the inside of his camera to get as cold as the outside so that the condensation would vanish. Geoff and Craig noticed the whales were still not comfortable with all the commotion on the top of ice. The animals most likely feared the men’s footsteps were those of a prowling polar bear. Breathing holes are favorite stalking grounds for polar bears. Like fish in a barrel.
    The trapped whales were extremely vulnerable and they knew it. Every time they rose to the surface, they were dangerously exposed. A polar bear could kill a giant whale with one devastating swipe of its paw. The whales tried to stay underwater as long as they could. But sooner or later they had to face whatever was stomping around above them. They had to breathe.
    While Oran fiddled with the expensive equipment, Geoff and Craig tallied the effects of the whales’ predicament. They tried to think of ways to nudge the whales toward open water. The ultimate question was whether they could influence gray whales even if they could come up with a plan to do so. Oran asked Craig to sit down so he could take his first pictures of the whales surfacing in the background. He lifted his heavy twenty-five-pound video camera onto his shoulder, focused the zoom lens, and squeezed his thumb against the soft rubber record button. Caudle lumbered about trying to record every aspect of the whales. He put the camera on a tripod and filmed Billy Adams testing the ice in the foreground with the whales bobbing their gigantic heads against the stark white background.
    Since the water was rapidly freezing, Caudle wanted to know how far the solid ice now extended. Would it be safe to walk right out to the edge of the breathing holes by the next morning? Billy Adams thought it might. In a guttural Eskimo accent, he said, “If the holes aren’t froze over, we could probably get close enough to pet ’em.”
    Oran had an