FEATURE
Consider the Whale
I
admire the ocean, but question its motives. It’s tried to kill me too many times— face down, throat full
of sand. The ocean doesn’t give a f*** 1 about us. Sure, it sings to many in a low ancestral whisper, but I promise that’s only to draw us in. In reality, it’s a sneaker-wave, riptide deathtrap, trying to kill all who come near, to drag them to suffocating depths and turn their flesh into a clambake for countless nightmare creatures that swim, slither, and crawl invisibly below the surface. Ever seen a Goblin Shark? The ocean is terrifying. Yet it’s home to creatures I have long craved proximity to and knowledge about: Whales. So, Dramamined and sunscreened, I rode a swift boat on an early October morning with five strangers and our captain out of Mission Bay to go whale watching. We were instructed to meet behind a seafood market, where stiff coffee-table-sized yellowfin tuna lay piled in wagons, dripping watery puddles of blood. From our captain, we were each given a form to sign that said if we died a sailor’s death out on the open sea, it would be no one’s fault. Our captain and his employer could not be sued. The ocean, after all, is extremely f****** 2 dangerous. Of course we’re all going to die out there , I thought. Everyone signed. Puttering 5mph through the no-wake zone, I was thinking about the magazine this story would be appearing in, San Diego Magazine’s annual issue dedicated to the environment. As a reporter, I’m fascinated by human consciousness and how media both propels and inhibits it. As an editor, I’m curious how a legacy regional magazine like this one can best serve to complicate our reader’s thinking on issues of ecology. How can a magazine that operates in a capitalist system approach ideas around so-called sustainability without reducing them to feel-good platitudes? By being honest, I think.
STORY BY MATEO HOKE ILLUSTRATIONS BY SAMANTHA LACY
1 fish 2 fucking
72 DECEMBER 2022
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