I’d always thought that people who went on whale watches were suckers: inexplicably compelled to pay twice the cost of zoo admission, just to see one lousy animal. And not even the animal in its entirety, just whatever the damn tease chose to show — the arch of the back, a flip of the tail.

No thank you, I thought. I’ll take my twenty-five dollars and make one hundred quarters, to put into the feed dispensers for the goats at the petting zoo.

Oddly enough, all it took to change my mind was the sound of them: that mournful bass echoing through a thick sea. I first heard it in a radio piece about Humpback Whales a few months ago, and actually had what they call (and, for the record, have copyrighted) “a driveway moment” in front of my desk. I sat there with headphones on, staring at my computer screen with unseeing eyes. The sound conveyed such massive power and sadness! I imagined a forty-foot long shimmering grey mass of flesh gliding evenly beneath endless seawater, the small grey eyes heavy-lidded and unfocused, as its giant pink maw floated open soundlessly. What could it capture in such a thing?

Two summers ago, I’d been on a sailboat on my way to Cape Cod, and I’d never even thought of them. We’d spit cherry seeds over the side of that tiny, rocking boat, and their red meaty shells had drifted slowly down, down. Maybe one of them had bonked a whale in the head. If the whale had noticed, and had become angry, maybe it could have torpedoed its way up from the dark cobalt waters in a whirlwind of destruction, soundlessly open that maw, and chomp! Our tiny sailboat gone, as if it had never existed. Somewhere unseen, a seagull would caw in our memory.

Adventure! Intrigue! I made it my mission to go on a whale watch as soon as possible.

I keep meaning to post “my whale story” which isn’t even so much of a story (in the sense of Something That Happened) as it is . . . I don’t know, Raffi on an acid trip. In the meantime, tangible things: pictures.

They’ve all come to look for America.

You can see more pictures of the awesome LaSalle family on boats (and — hey! — even one picture of a part of one whale) here.