I enjoy a good lunch.A good lunch is a rather like a well made investment in the middle of the day.
Today I had a lovely lunch with Angela the Ferry Catcher. We had decided to take the New England Aquarium sponsored Whale Watching tour out of Boston Harbor based on their stated claim of "Guaranteed Whale Sightings." According to their website (http://www.neaq.org/), in the unfortunate event that whales aren't sighted, passengers would receive a complimentary New England Whale Watch ticket. It reminded me of Mastery Learning: if at first you don't succeed, just do it a lot more.
We arrived a bit early, and, intrigued by the name "Legal Seafood," stopped in for a bit of lunch. Angela said that the first time someone mentioned the restaurant's name, she heard it called "Lethal Seafood," which might explain why we got such a good table.
We dined on fresh grilled calamari salad with white beans and a snappy vinaigrette. Expecting the usual nondescript calamari rings, I was surprised to see whole creatures in the salad, complete with tiny tentacles and suction cups. One even looked like a miniature octopus - which had probably gotten caught up in a confused crowd of squid. A lethal mistake. But a tasty one - for me.
After lunch we boarded the Voyager III, the Aquarium's sleek whale watching vessel, a mammoth catamaran with huge pontoons and three observation decks complete with indoor seating. Angela and I decided to sit outside on the bow of the lowest deck in order to maximize our visibility. We also thought it would be more stable than the uppermost deck in the event of a rogue wave or two.
We steamed out to Stellwagen Bank, an enormous undersea mountain with massive pockets of nutrient-rich water upwelling from the cold dark ocean depths. This serves as the fast-food equivalent for dolphins, sea birds, whales and other marine life...such as, squid, perhaps.
About thirty minutes into the voyage, as the ship began to roll significantly, I had vital self-realization: I am easily susceptible to sea sickness. I typically remedied this flaw by avoiding the open ocean. Now, however, the trait which had remained dormant for so many years was waking up with a surly disposition.
Motion sickness is caused by two differing signals, emanating from within each ear, which confuse the brain and result in excessive saliva production, dizziness, and nausea. It is impossible to be calm and sea sick at the same time. Angela seemed serenely focused on the horizon looking for whale spouts while I sat in a mouth-watering, stomach-churning dilemma: it would be most uncouth to disturb Angela's rapture by vomiting on her.
I remembered reading that one could counteract the effects of motion sickness by applying pressure to the inside of one's wrist and impinging a nerve that somehow mitigated the unpleasantness. I also recalled that meditative repose focused one's thoughts elsewhere, which was where my thoughts needed to be at that moment.
I found the spot on my wrist, pressed forcibly then turned my focus to breathing deeply. It went something like this: in....out....in...out...SQUID!...in...out...in...out...TENTACLES!...out... no, no...in, then out...in...out...in...out...YOU ATE A BABY OCTOPUS!...and so on.
Oh, incidentally, we did see humpback whales, five or six of them. We saw a mother breach the water completely followed by her young calf doing the same. They rolled on their sides and slapped the water with their fins. They stuck their heads out of the water and peered at us in a maneuver known as spy hopping. They dove deeply, breaking the water with elegant tail flourishes.
In...out...in...out.
The spectacle finally drew to a close and we made our way back to port. As the Boston skyline drew nearer the swells subsided. Evidently the leading edge of a cold front had whipped up the ocean surface and the Voyager III encountered some of the roughest seas the tour operators had ever seen. Angela turned to me and in a conspiratorial whisper said, "You know, I was this close to being sick, but I just kept focusing on the horizon." Most of the other passengers onboard were not so fortunate, particularly those seated inside which, according to one observer, became a veritable "floating vomitorium."
For me there is something Zen-like in the act of whale watching. I found it not so much in the the awe-inspiring natural phenomenon of massive sea creatures twirling in balletic grace, or the poetry of sea and sky, wind and water. No, I found nirvana by keeping my investment in a good lunch.
It was a whale of a task.
blc 2007
We arrived a bit early, and, intrigued by the name "Legal Seafood," stopped in for a bit of lunch. Angela said that the first time someone mentioned the restaurant's name, she heard it called "Lethal Seafood," which might explain why we got such a good table.
We dined on fresh grilled calamari salad with white beans and a snappy vinaigrette. Expecting the usual nondescript calamari rings, I was surprised to see whole creatures in the salad, complete with tiny tentacles and suction cups. One even looked like a miniature octopus - which had probably gotten caught up in a confused crowd of squid. A lethal mistake. But a tasty one - for me.
After lunch we boarded the Voyager III, the Aquarium's sleek whale watching vessel, a mammoth catamaran with huge pontoons and three observation decks complete with indoor seating. Angela and I decided to sit outside on the bow of the lowest deck in order to maximize our visibility. We also thought it would be more stable than the uppermost deck in the event of a rogue wave or two.
We steamed out to Stellwagen Bank, an enormous undersea mountain with massive pockets of nutrient-rich water upwelling from the cold dark ocean depths. This serves as the fast-food equivalent for dolphins, sea birds, whales and other marine life...such as, squid, perhaps.
About thirty minutes into the voyage, as the ship began to roll significantly, I had vital self-realization: I am easily susceptible to sea sickness. I typically remedied this flaw by avoiding the open ocean. Now, however, the trait which had remained dormant for so many years was waking up with a surly disposition.
Motion sickness is caused by two differing signals, emanating from within each ear, which confuse the brain and result in excessive saliva production, dizziness, and nausea. It is impossible to be calm and sea sick at the same time. Angela seemed serenely focused on the horizon looking for whale spouts while I sat in a mouth-watering, stomach-churning dilemma: it would be most uncouth to disturb Angela's rapture by vomiting on her.
I remembered reading that one could counteract the effects of motion sickness by applying pressure to the inside of one's wrist and impinging a nerve that somehow mitigated the unpleasantness. I also recalled that meditative repose focused one's thoughts elsewhere, which was where my thoughts needed to be at that moment.
I found the spot on my wrist, pressed forcibly then turned my focus to breathing deeply. It went something like this: in....out....in...out...SQUID!...in...out...in...out...TENTACLES!...out... no, no...in, then out...in...out...in...out...YOU ATE A BABY OCTOPUS!...and so on.
Oh, incidentally, we did see humpback whales, five or six of them. We saw a mother breach the water completely followed by her young calf doing the same. They rolled on their sides and slapped the water with their fins. They stuck their heads out of the water and peered at us in a maneuver known as spy hopping. They dove deeply, breaking the water with elegant tail flourishes.
In...out...in...out.
The spectacle finally drew to a close and we made our way back to port. As the Boston skyline drew nearer the swells subsided. Evidently the leading edge of a cold front had whipped up the ocean surface and the Voyager III encountered some of the roughest seas the tour operators had ever seen. Angela turned to me and in a conspiratorial whisper said, "You know, I was this close to being sick, but I just kept focusing on the horizon." Most of the other passengers onboard were not so fortunate, particularly those seated inside which, according to one observer, became a veritable "floating vomitorium."
For me there is something Zen-like in the act of whale watching. I found it not so much in the the awe-inspiring natural phenomenon of massive sea creatures twirling in balletic grace, or the poetry of sea and sky, wind and water. No, I found nirvana by keeping my investment in a good lunch.
It was a whale of a task.
blc 2007
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