Ocean Shores: Witness to a whale's last journey

Last month was my first time driving on the beach. Formerly I was totally against the idea of cars rolling down the Washington coast, based on the principle that rubber tires don't belong on sand.

Rubber-soled shoes, now that's another matter.

OK, so I've also entertained the argument that salt and sand can't be very good for your car either. Squealing brake pads, clogged air filter, salted chassis, right?

Well, never mind. This old dog learns a new trick.

Thus I find myself with Linda on a cool, breezy April morning, our Subaru rolling on the sand, heading south from Roosevelt Beach near Moclips. Our tires leave Braille lines in the hard-packed sand. We splash through creek fans, windows down, the rising sun on my bare left arm. Sunlight strikes diamond points on the crests of gray, flinty waves toppling offshore.

Lines of gulls strut apart to let us pass. Some scatter upward in a slow tornado cone, the way litter spirals before the A train on the subway tracks. The air is fresh and tidal but not too fishy strong. I slow at the creek crossings, rolling over the shimmering rivulets as though they were a corrugated roof.

Linda loves the beach; it brings on a deep, immersive mood in her. She goes to a place inside herself that mirrors the grand expanse of sky, water, sand. It is a happiness, for sure, but far more reflective, as if she were pausing before herself in a museum painting, listening for guiding silence among the backdrop of drumming waves.

This is not about getting answers. This is hearing your questions roar.

These are my best times, too. I love being at her side, knowing how much she loves the ocean. We come awake, feel youthful again.

We stop a few times and there are no others in sight. We park just above where the sand is shiny and Linda kicks off her shoes, rolling up her pant legs to wade in the water to where her calves are swallowed by the frothy last surge of spent waves. She stretches out her hands and turns in the surf.

I watch her ritual; she bends, lifts, examines, tosses away, ever alert for shells, driftwood sticks, red jasper or - her favorites - clear white agate stones.

We drive again. Linda's feet are encrusted with sand and glow pink from cold. Then we see it. We see it for a long time but don't understand. I slow the car. We are just north of Ocean Shores.

Fallen traveler

It is a hump on the beach, a dune out of place, a long, somewhat gleaming yet pasty thing too large to be a tree.

"A whale," I say to Linda, who is still sizing it up. A Hitchcockian flock of gulls and crows stand upon its body. Some peck while most just stare.

We park and get out, the sound of our shutting doors rippling through the pensive birds, an invisible wave shuddering through their formation, loosening them up. Some gulls start to murmur.

I grab my camera and we approach. Most crows take flight and some gulls, too, but many more just saunter off to the nearest dune, complaining with cackles and keeping a wary watch on the two interlopers.

It is a gray whale more than 30 feet long. I think it is recently beached because its upper flesh has not been pecked too badly. Its large tail has been still long enough, however, for blowing sand to partly cover its outline, as though an embossed paper shape. Gull talons make tracks across the tail and along the hard-packed sand upwind of the carcass.The whale is colored a mottled brown, copper, ochre, patches of flesh-like peeling wallpaper in the color of autumn straw. The rough, scarred flesh says, "Life is tough. I wore this skin all these years and it got me here. Here, but no more, no farther."

Were you a champ? A noble king? Or a slow, gentle mammal, dependent for food on tiny things?

We circle the beast many times. I take photo after photo with the whale and Linda together. I am curious what she thinks and feels. We have not said a word since leaving the car.

I am repelled, physically, by the smell downwind of its mouth; unforgettable, gut-wrenching decomposition. I think of World War I and trench warfare in France; helpless privates in their holes with nostrils full of rotting bodies.

Staying objective

Neither Linda nor I have ever seen a dead whale. As a writer and reporter, I am aware of certain tones out there, of trigger words to elicit emotions that would emphasize the loss of this great creature.

I resist feeling anything. I imagine the triage surgeons in France, handling the wounded in 1916 might have had to keep their feelings in check, too - so much work to be done.

I do think a pair of facts are appropriate now. The population of gray whales continues to decline, with their numbers falling by 25% since 2016, to about 20,500 remaining along the West Coast. The number of documented dead and beached has nearly doubled over that same period.

I wish the whale would tell me what happened. Linda comes over and points to a jagged edge on one of its fins. Was it a propellor strike, she asks.

Starvation. Chemicals. Ship strikes. Warmer currents. Underwater sonics so disturbing that, if it happened to me or you, we would be driven to our beds with pillows over our heads.

But ultimately it is just death, a process that breaks down all organic matter evenly. Gulls don't care. Everywhere on the beach something is dying, clam shells and crab claws dot the tide lines every day. How many sand dollars did I roll over to get here?

But its size and isolation grips me; this lone giant left to rot so far from its pod, and so far from any human who might want to mourn it.

I am not up to the task, my emotions held in check like a scientist studying a test tube of tears. I need descriptions, facts, a full report of what is happening now.

However, I do want to honor this whale. The last organic thing of this size that I honored was the Neby Fir - only a stump today - that once was the largest fir tree on the Olympic Peninsula to ever be cut down.

Maybe there's no proper closure here. I am simply connected to this whale through the act of photographing it, then writing of it later. I am just doing a job. I hope my hand is guided right.

■ Mark Woytowich is a writer, photographer, video producer and author of "Where Waterfalls and Wild Things Are." He lives in Potlatch with his wife, Linda. His "On the Go" column appears every other week in the Shelton-Mason County Journal. Reach him at his website, http://www.wherewaterfallsare.com, or by email at [email protected].