War of the Whales Read Online Free PDF Page B

collect on the ground. In the meantime, I’ll track down Darlene and get her in motion.”
    •  •  •
    Balcomb emerged from his office to find the Earthlings spread out across the living room. Some were resting, while others were tending to coral cuts on their feet and hands. It was midafternoon, but no one had eaten lunch.
    The phone rang in the kitchen, where Claridge was slapping together some peanut butter sandwiches. Someone reported that a dolphin had stranded alive but in bad shape on Powell Cay, a barrier island just east of Abaco. They hoped that Claridge, who was known throughout the islands as the resident dolphin expert, would come try to save it. She grabbed a sandwich and a bottle of water, and headed off in the truck toward the Powell Cay ferry.
    Moments later, the phone rang again. It was someone at Castaway Cay, Disney’s private Out Island 15 miles offshore from Abaco, reporting that a “huge, funny-looking dolphin” had swum into its mangrove lagoon. It was swimming in circles, and the guests were starting to freak out. Could Balcomb help them get it out of there?
    Balcomb suspected it was a beaked whale, which locals often mistook for dolphins, even though beaked whales are significantly larger than dolphins, with rounder bodies and long snouts. He and Ellifrit identified half a dozen Earthlings who could still walk and were game for another rescue operation. They grabbed the blue tarp from the truck and headed out in the motorboat for Castaway Cay.
    Before the Disney Company bought Gorda Cay in 1996 and rechristened it Castaway Cay, the three-mile-long island had seen service as a way station for drug runners and as a set for the movie
Splash
. Disney spent $25 million transforming the cay into a private port of call for Disney cruise ships in the Bahamas. The island theme park, where Captain Hook, Peter Pan, and the Lost Boys roamed about in full costume, featured castaway shacks serving piña coladas in coconut shells and a snorkeling lagoon housing two sunken “submarines” retired from the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride at the Walt Disney World Magic Kingdom. The island’s three beaches had been built atop a coral shelf, using 35,000 truckloads of sand dredged from the ocean floor.
    By the time Balcomb’s boat arrived at Castaway Cay, the snorkelers had exited the lagoon and were standing on the beach taking pictures of the “funny-looking dolphin” that lolled near the surface. Balcomb identified it as a dense-beaked Blainville’s whale. He waded into the lagoon and moved quietly toward the animal. Ordinarily, beaked whales are the most skittish of creatures, almost impossible to approach without spooking. This one submitted uncomplainingly to Balcomb’s examination. Like the other stranded whales Balcomb had seen that day, it showed no outward signs of trauma. Luckily, it wasn’t bleeding. Balcomb could just imagine the melee that would ensue on Castaway Cay if a shiver of tiger sharks suddenly entered the lagoon.
    In a few minutes, they had secured the tarp beneath the whale and were leading him out to sea. Buoys painted as Mickey, Minnie, and Goofy stood sentinel at the mouth of the lagoon. It was sunset, and daiquiris were being served on the deck of the
Disney Wonder
, which lay at anchor nearby. The cruise passengers clustered at the railings, pointing at the whale and taking pictures of the rescue. A few people rested their daiquiris on the rail and clapped.
    Two Castaway employees approached on Jet Skis and offered to escort the whale to deeper water. Spouting water from their tails, the two Jet Skiers steered the dazed and confused Blainville’s toward the setting sun and its canyon home.
    •  •  •
    Forty miles to the northeast, Claridge stepped off the ferry in Powell Cay to find the beached dolphin in dire condition. It was an Atlantic spotted dolphin, one of 12 species of oceanic dolphins found in the Bahamas. Highly social and usually found in groups of