ALBACORA 33 



cowboy's legs would straddle a barebacked bronco. His 

 left arm was wrapped around a stanchion. With his right 

 arm, Doty held the camera up in front of his eyes and 

 began cautiously clicking away. The Explorer pitched 

 and rolled in the surging sea and once or twice Doty 

 seemed to slip. A fall into the teeming ocean would 

 have been no joke, and each time Doty fought desper- 

 ately until he had regained his balance. He was right 

 on top of the whales, as Lou had wanted, and was doing 

 a gritty and determined job. Then one of the whales 

 rolled directly under the Explorer, The boat lurched 

 upward. The bow came completely out of the water. 

 Hedley's uncertain perch was suddenly twenty feet over 

 a whale's gigantic back. I think I screamed, but Lou 

 somehow managed to keep thinking about the pictures. 

 "Shoot it, Doty," he yelled. "What a terrific shot!" For 

 the time being, though. Doty had abandoned photogra- 

 phy. As the bow rose up and that monstrous whale ap- 

 peared beneath him. Doty grabbed the stanchion with 

 both his arms, clung to the camera with no more than a 

 thumb and abandoned all ideas of taking pictures. He 

 hung there, staring at the whale and probably at a 

 series of vignettes covering his entire life as well, for 

 what seemed like an age. Then the whale slipped ofif to 

 one side. The Explorer's bow slapped against the sur- 

 face and Doty, shaken but unhurt, was safe again. My 

 mother in her home on the New Jersey shore probably 

 heard my yell of relief when that whale slipped away. 



