Paddling in the Path of Giants

I'm on a storm-tossed ocean in winter, watching intently and patiently for a whale. I float in a tiny craft with a history that runs back thousands of years. In fact, its wake runs concurrent with the path of the same animals I'm here to study. Suddenly, an explosion of air alerts me to their presence. My head snaps around and I realize I am directly in the path of a creature 45 feet long, weighing 70,000 pounds. Its flukes enter the water as if it were preparing to dive. Instead, it slips just under the surface, displaying its vast length in the ethereal, blue-green light. As it passes, mere feet away, it turns on one side to look up at me. Its powerful flipper almost touches my kayak as it glides by below. I know that my life will never be the same...

--Steph Dutton

This is a story about toughness and love. It also covers long kayak paddles upon the open, rolling sea, and pursuit of the heart-shaped spouts and broad, brandished tails of diving whales.

Let's start with the toughness. Year after year, gray whales achieve one of the hardest migrations faced by any species of mammal. They swim a 14,000-mile circuit that runs from Arctic feeding grounds in the Bering and Chukchi seas, to their Baja, California, mating and calving lagoons, and back. Yet, this is not the roughest trip that gray whales have ever seen. That honor goes to their voyage back from the brink of extinction...twice. Those traditional calving lagoons in Baja on numerous occasions provided unscrupulous whalers with an effortless hunting opportunity, and they pounced upon it. They harpooned thousands of these gentle giants, turning them into great vats of oil to light the lamps of the East Coast. A favorite trick was spearing young calves, then harpooning frantic mothers when they rushed to aid their babes. The first great slaughter, in the 1880s, chopped gray whale numbers to fewer than 2,000. After the whales somehow managed to rebound from that onslaught, the same thing happened all over again in the 1920s and 1930s.

A West Coast sea kayaker named Steph Dutton, 47, often meditates on the toughness, resilience and persistence of gray whales. These are qualities he admires and seeks to emulate. That shared spiritual focus is a major reason why Dutton now devotes his life to championing the survival of these whales, and their achievements as a species. With wife Heidi Tiura, 46, a licensed sea captain, by his side, Dutton has launched a new and epic effort to follow and map the entire Arctic-Baja migration route of these whales, planning to trace major segments of it via paddle power. It is hoped the information gained by this effort will help ensure the whales' safety for generations to come.

Beyond his environmental ideals, Dutton has a personal reason for wishing to partake of the spiritual qualities of the species. He had a brush with his own extinction, in 1978. An off-duty California firefighter, he was heading home from a work shift when he happened upon an accident scene in the hills near Escondido. He braked, and got out of his rig to render an assist. "A guy was lying in the road, near the wreck, covered with a blanket. I thought he was probably dead," Dutton says. "But when I pulled it off, amazingly, he was alive, and begging me to help him. I'd just started to do a primary survey when I heard the squeal of tires, looked up, and saw headlights coming right for us. Wham! That's when I got my leg crushed."

"What Steph's leaving out," interrupts Tiura, an eavesdropper on this conversation near their Monterey home, "is that he first threw that accident victim off the road. There was just enough time to move one body. So, that guy went to safety, and Steph took the hit."

As his heroics stand baldly revealed, a deep blush spreads widely under Dutton's tanned cheeks. "Well, I did give him a shove," he concedes. "Then, I tried to dive away myself. But the oncoming driver hit me right as I was in mid-air, and smashed my leg. That threw me in under the truck that had already been wrecked. "So there I was, lying in a puddle of gas, when I see a fireman walk up holding a lit flare. That's when I knew I'd die if I lost consciousness. I had to stay awake long enough to direct my own rescue." Dutton, then 27, lost his main job as a firefighter, lost his construction side business, then lost his crushed left leg below the knee to amputation. But he was determined not to lose overall physical fitness or sacrifice his love of outdoor sport. As soon as he was sufficiently healed, Dutton went on to earn accreditation as a professional ski instructor--the examiners didn't even know he was skiing on a prosthesis.

After that, says Dutton, he was "gradually lured" into sea kayaking. His first experience occurred solely because paddling happened to constitute a portion of a race he had entered on the Washington Coast. Of course, he grew elated to discover that any trace of limp in his gait vanished completely the second he sat down in a kayak hull. And, as a paddler, he found that upper body strength and aerobic fitness could flourish unimpaired.

That his paddling might eventually bring him to love a tribe of cetaceans who dwelt in these coastal waters--as well as hook up with a very unusual master of vessels named Heidi--was not yet anticipated. With typical dash, Dutton added to his self-education in ocean paddling by concocting several epic adventures. His first was a solo paddle from Victoria, Canada, all the way down to Ensenada, Mexico. This voyage of 1,600 nautical miles was completed through two months of steady paddling in 1993. Then, adding a sprinkle of risk for spice, he undertook a winter paddle of the Oregon Coast in 1995. This enterprise was a much bigger bite to chew. It involved several crashes in hazardous seas while attempting necessary landings through storm surf. Dutton badly tore both rotator cuff shoulder muscles--injuries which plague him still today.

However, amid a raging storm on that first major voyage, he also gained a rare vision of marine beauty that haunts him still, and, like a pale chimera, has lured him on toward his life's work. "I was paddling amid a full-on gale," Dutton recalls, "and was filled with a mix of awe and terror by what I saw. Mostly, I worried about keeping myself upright. Suddenly, I was stunned to see that heaving water all around me start to make some strange moves. Then I realized--I was surrounded by a pod of spouting whales!" The contrast between one lone, struggling human paddler and this bevy of plunging leviathans, who moved calmly and confidently through all the maritime chaos of an open ocean storm, could not have been greater. "Next," Dutton says, "a whale on my right dove, and then surfaced again on my left side. My gosh, I thought, 40 feet of whale just swam under my kayak. What magic! I considered that they might be a pod of grays, but I couldn't be sure. Right afterwards, of course, I made it my business to find out a lot more about them."

This wasn't the only inspiring dimension that came from these voyages. One aspect of logistical support shifted greatly between Dutton's 1993 trip and the 1995 adventure. He gained a permanent, shoreside support boss-- in the form of Heidi Tiura, a strong-bodied woman who grew up with the glow of ocean sunsets in her eyes and the salt of wave spume in her strawberry hair. From those days at Montara, in coastal California, Tiura says, "I always felt a huge affinity for the sea." Consequently, she sought employ in the maritime industries, first running windsurf shops, then working as a deckhand on charter fishing boats (dubbed "pukers" in the trade). Gradually, she worked her way up in status, and northward in location. She became a tugboat operator on Puget Sound, and then, after obtaining a Coast Guard license, a master of offshore vessels in Alaska.

While in Alaska in 1994, she scored a job running support on sea kayak excursions for tourists off the cruise ships that used Sitka as a port-of- call. "All the gear and equipment that they said would be awaiting on my work site was in fact there," Tiura recalls. "The only problem was that it was all busted. So I was up to my ass in grease and broken boats when I got a call to go pick up a guy at the airport. This supposedly was some hot new instructor, coming in to whip our kayak guides into shape."

Interestingly, Tiura already sported a long-distance crush on a mystery man she'd heard about from her sister. The sister, still a resident of California, had related a story about a one-legged, ex-firefighter who had solo-paddled nearly the entire Pacific Northwest the previous year. "Wow," Tiura remembered thinking at the time, "how inspirational! That's just the sort of guy I'd like to have in my life."

While she dawdled and waited in the baggage claim area of Sitka's tiny airfield, Tiura says she approached "one Eddie Bauer type after another," inquiring if any of them happened to be a kayak instructor. After receiving several surly rejections, she tapped one final prospect on the shoulder. Steph Dutton turned around, smiling, pleased that someone had come to welcome him and give him a ride to town. "Those bright blue eyes of his were all lit up," Tiura recalls. "They were like the color of the sea, when sunlight pours through it. I got jolted, right on the spot. But even when we went drinking that night down at the Pioneer Saloon, and he told me stories of his long paddles down the coast, I still didn't put it together that he was the very man I'd dreamed about.

"I did notice that he had a slight limp," she adds. "The next day, as we all piled into the truck, I glimpsed a steel bar poking out between the end of his pant leg and the top of his shoe. I touched it, and asked, 'Hey, what's this?' "Steph just quietly replied, 'Ah, it's nothing,' which suddenly spoke volumes to me. So, we fell in love in a day. And we've been together ever since."

After the Sitka gig rattled to a halt, Dutton and Tiura hit a winding road that brought them down to Monterey Bay in Central California. Here, on a long, offshore paddle in 1996, Dutton was able to show Tiura more about sea kayaking's allure, especially the access it provided to admire the magic of gray whales. Each winter, that vast parade of 22,000 grays hugs the Pacific coastline as they move down to Baja from their Arctic feeding grounds.

Off Big Sur, the wandering newlyweds observed spray from so many whale spouts, they decided to launch kayaks and try to follow them the very next day. Even a strong storm blowing ashore that night failed to dissuade them. The following day, the two paddlers headed out into the rippling corduroy of 16-foot seas. Soon, they found themselves kayaking right amid the heaving pods, sometimes a mere boatlength away as a huge barnacled flank rose into view, or an auto- sized forehead sighed out steam like an accelerating locomotive. "When those whales dived beside us, about 10 feet down, we could see an incredible, blue- green luminescence surrounding them," remembers Dutton.

"That is the true color of open ocean waters," Tiura adds. "It just grabs at your soul. It makes you want to go along with them, trying to keep up and doing what they do." Entranced by the voyaging whales, entrained by their slow, plunging rhythm, the kayakers trailed the migration for perhaps 20 miles along the dramatic cliffs of the Big Sur coastline. But eventually, reluctantly, they were forced to turn back. Now, many rough miles had to be paddled to reach their launch site. All they had to fuel the effort was a single green apple and a solitary water bottle. "All that long way back, it was uphill going (counter to wind and current)," Tiura says. "Dropping into the trough between swells was like falling into a valley between mountains. Wind was blowing tops right off the waves by the time we got in. But I said to Steph, 'Hey, this was the best day of my life! I really don't mind paying dues for that.'"

Dutton's maritime contact high had produced its first new addict. Now, two people felt completely seduced by the concept of tailing gray whales through an entire year's migration. All they had to do was figure out how to build their lives around the adventure of inter-species navigation in the North Pacific. "We decided it was important for us to hook up with gray whale projects that could establish scientific goals and credibility," Dutton says. "It would be far too selfish for us to put everything we had into something that would just be adventure for adventure's sake. We hope our energy will go into things from which the whales themselves will also gain some sort of benefit."

In 1997, that turned out to be a joint project with Dr. James Harvey, a marine biologist with Moss Landing Laboratories, and a gray whale specialist. He was the U.S. expert on site when three grays were rescued from Arctic ice near Barrow, Alaska, in 1988--a joint project with Russians that made a televised drama that strummed heartstrings around the globe. Harvey already had a project underway to radio-tag and pursue gray whales amid the Monterey portion of their migration by using the skills of two sea lions originally trained for mysterious roles with the Department of Defense. Harvey's project with Dutton and Tiura meant experiments with a more direct approach--paddling right up to the side of a breaching whale and plonking it with a suction-cup tipped bolt launched by crossbow. The shaft was designed to attach an instrument package for radio tracking. The thinking was that, if a standard whale route past Monterey Bay could be documented, rules for human navigation could be set to minimize disturbances to the whales and their young.

Typical outings for the project consisted of Dutton and a strong New Hampshire paddler named Tim Morrison propelling a three-hole kayak, while Harvey sat in the center cockpit, wielding his crossbow. Meanwhile, Tiura hovered about in her 26-foot, open ocean workboat, the Sea Dog, to provide spotting and background support. Although this project proved whales could be approached and tagged in this manner, the suction cups did not adhere well to rough, barnacled whalehide, and the packages flopped into the sea. So, in 1998, the project continues, but penetrating darts with degradable leashes are to be tried on the instrument packages instead. This year, a different effort has also been launched. Dana Riggs, a marine biologist from California State University at Monterey, has recruited Dutton- Tiura to chase the whales for even longer distances. They now pursue the migrating grays all the way from Santa Cruz to the Monterey Peninsula, across a 24-mile-wide expanse of sea that includes a 10,000-foot-deep submarine trench. Information from this endeavor, keyed into charts, will supplant old and partial data about whale routes now used by National Marine Sanctuary managers.

Interestingly, all the Dutton-Tiura projects derive some financial support from the U.S. paddling industry. Funds are funneled in by Dutton. During spring, summer and early fall, when he isn't chasing whales, Dutton travels to watersports fairs, expos and contests, serving as a roving ambassador for both cetacean species and sea kayaks. A constantly evolving slide show and lecture, "In The Path of Giants," is also presented at as many schools and clubs as he can line up. The National Audubon Society also has just signed up to support these educational dimensions of his work. The chance for wide exposure of labels and logos has not gone unnoticed. Currently, Dutton is sponsored by Kokatat, Werner Paddles, Necky Kayaks and Cascade Designs. Dutton also secured a $60,000 donation from Gore-Tex earmarked for whale projects. "Gore-Tex really stepped up to the plate and gave us some breathing room this year," Dutton says. "All these companies are on board because they truly care about the health of oceans, as well as the sea's beautiful creatures."

Most corporations have a considerable way to go to catch up to Dutton when it comes to caring about oceans. Especially when it comes to gray whales. Most of the time, Dutton comes across as a warm, charismatic, friendly presence. But if you want to watch his eyes get red and neck veins bulge, just mention Mitsubishi Corporation's plan to help Mexico put a salt factory on the shore of the last undisturbed calving nursery of the grays, at San Ignacio Lagoon. Or bring up the plan of the Makah tribes to revitalize their tradition of harpooning gray whales off the Pacific Northwest. Dutton has blended the wake of his life with that of his maritime totem animals, and he doesn't plan on leaving their side any time soon.

"My fascination with the grays is not anthropomorphic," Dutton insists. "It's not all cuddly-feely. I don't have a single, stuffed whale toy on my couch, and I never will. The bond I sense with them comes from something deeper. These animals have withstood the ravages of greedy humans for more than a century. Yet, somehow, they have found a way to endure, to just keep going on and on. Deep in my mind, I have an image from an old fairy tale, called The Steadfast Tin Soldier. He's the one who's all beat up and missing a leg, yet never will shirk his duty. That term, 'steadfast,' means so much to me because that's what these gray whales are. They aren't pretty. They aren't the high glamour species like humpbacks, blues or orcas. They just keep making their lives happen, millenium after millenium."

--To support the Duttons' gray whale project, or for more information, visit www.graywhale.net or e-mail heidi@graywhale.net.