Whale comes, I get hurt, a prayer is said, a flag flies and there is joy
Saturday, September 14, 2013 at 12:20AM 
Seconds after Bryan harpooned a bowhead from Nukapigak 3 boat, I tried to raise myself higher over the windscreen of Nukapigak 1, somewhat more than 100 yards behind the strike. Just then we hit a wave - hard. A severe, sharp, pain ripped through my left groin. I buckled over, lost my balance and tumbled to the floor. Certain the pain was something I could stretch through and keep on shooting, I stood right back up but got ripped again. We smacked another wave, I fell, tried to get up, got ripped again, fell, tried to get up...
"Stay seated!" Edward shouted. "Don't stand up!" He knew I had been hurt but he had to get to the whale as swiftly as possible. Suddenly I knew that even from the midst of the action I was out of it. I could not stretch my way through this. I could not stand up. It hurt too bad when I tried. I had no choice but to stay seated, my view limited.
Fortunately, it was an instant kill. With me hardly able to see anything, EMN Crew secured the whale, Edward prayed over the VHF and I photographed what fragments of the scene I could. Next, Doreen hoisted the crew flag over Nukapigak 3 boat. Extending my camera this way and that as the boats rocked and shifted and the flag disappeared and reappeared in different places before me, I shot not by viewfinder but by internal vision. I captured a few mediocre flag images and then, for the first time since we had left the island, I pulled out my iPhone. From my seat in the still rocking and shifting boat, I shot just a few iPhone frames of the flag, this being the final one. My phone went dead.
It would now be a slow ride back to Cross Island. Suffering pain that alternated from mild to nearly unbearable, I stayed seated but shot pictures all the way back. I felt wonderfully happy. Everyone did. it was joyous in that boat. Another whale had come to the people of Nuiqsut. (Don't worry - just a badly pulled muscle or tendon. I will be sore and restrained for a week or so but I will be fine.)
Reader Comments (1)
Dang, Bill. Take care of yourself.
Congratulations to the crew for getting the whale.