A grey in shallow waters (day 250)

A grey whale swam into False Creek this afternoon.  Never has this happened before.  I was in meetings all day and missed the real time announcement.  No doubt, twitter was overheating in the local geo.  By the time I found out, it had gone back to open sea.  I went down to the docks to talk with the Aquabus guys and they told me how amazing it was to see a big animal like that so close.  They say it was about 13 meters.  Here is the CBC report.

The big question is why this has happened.  Is the whale healthy?  Is this just random?  Was it a message (a la Douglas Adams)?  Is this related to the whale that washed up on shore, starved to death? Is it related to what is happening in the Gulf?  I have this notion that whales talk to each other over great distances.  I have no idea if an oil spill would be a topic of conversation but I'm guessing it might be?  Still that probably wouldn't have anything to do with False Creek.  The CBC report seems to imply this is a normal migration route and the whale was just curious or something.

Anyway, I'm sorry I missed the whale but I hope it's happily swimming with some stories to tell.

A song for this post.