A year ago today a mega cruise ship was plugging its way up Favorite Channel. The on-board naturalist would have used the public address system, the same one used to announce the opening of the casino, to direct passengers’ attention to Shelter Island where two humpback whales had just surfaced. I would have grumbled to Aki that the whale watching boats couldn’t be far away. 

            If we didn’t move from this rocky headland, we would have seen four or five go-fast-boats circle around the whales as more on-board naturalists clicked the microphones on their PA systems. I would have remembered the time, on an early spring day, before the first cruise ship of the year, when two newly-arrived humpback whales surfaced less than fifty meters from here. The little dog and I were the only ones to see them. 

            This morning, the channel is empty of cruise ships and whale watching boats. No one follows the whales as they swim from Pearl Harbor to Shelter Island. This will be the first summer in decades without cruise ships or whale watching boats. No helicopters loaded with cruise ship passengers will buzz overhead on their way to the Juneau Ice Field. The city’s economy is going to take a hit. But the whales won’t mind.