Killing Keiko (39 page)

“Okay?” I asked, knowing I didn’t have much longer before Keiko would end the behavior.
It couldn’t be easy to propel his hefty mass to this position and hold it for long.

“Stand by—yes, the blast went off,” Charles finally responded. Only a few moments
had passed. Upon Charles’ confirmation I bridged Keiko and tossed a few of his favorite
fish around the water.

“No reaction whatsoever,” I relayed to no one in particular.

“Sili
, anything?” Jeff asked over the radio. The crew of the
Sili
, stationed between us and the return to the harbor, had submerged an underwater microphone
and listened intently for any evidence of the blasts.

“Sili—Draupnir
. Nothing on the hydrophone,” came Blair’s reply.

“Well, that went about as smoothly as we could hope for,” Charles stated as he leaned
over the sponson beside Robin looking down at Keiko, who seemed happily oblivious.
Dutifully, Michael again relayed the update to the two support boats orbiting the
Draupnir
at a distance.

By this time, nearly every person on the boat was packed to the starboard side in
the optimal position to observe Keiko at the time of the explosions. The event couldn’t
have been more anticlimactic from our distant position northwest of the island. Relief
at finally evading the doomsday blasting that had created such a panic now erupted
into a cackle of small talk aboard the walk-boat. As the dark cloud of the blasting
lifted, the realization poured over us that here we were, out to sea with Keiko for
the first time. Taking in the scene, afforded us on a gorgeous day, no less, we each
took time to bask in the glory of the moment.

Not wanting to remain exposed much longer, Robin instructed Michael to prepare for
the return. Following a few exchanges of position and route between the walk-boat
and supporting vessels, a phone call or two to the island base, and bustling about
the deck, we started off on an east-northeast heading, back to Klettsvik. It was barely
after 1100 hours. The warmth of the sun, now high on the horizon, seemed to smile
on our little accomplishment.

On the journey back, the currents that parted their way around the eastern point of
the island did much to slow our approach. Keiko labored alongside the
Draupnir
. At times he seemed almost reluctant, forcing Michael to slow the pace across the
small chop paralleling the northern shores. Unlike walk rehearsals in the bay, Keiko
was all business at sea. Though he followed my direction when it was offered, he rarely
cast his normal sideways glance in my direction. Instead, he kept his head down, powering
his flukes rhythmically alongside the
Draupnir
.

Robin and Michael conferred back and forth on a tactic, a means to avoid the more
amplified current and swells breaking around the rocky points guarding the entrance
to Klettsvik. The two decided to run far and wide, making our turn south well beyond
the tip of the island.

I could hear the conversations behind me on the platform, although my attentions remained
on Keiko and holding fast to the line securing the erratically pitching platform.
I wondered if my legs would be sore after what amounted to several hours at this position
outside the boat. The ride was not unlike the twisting impacts of skiing down a black
diamond slope, enduring moguls along the way.

Robin, Jeff and Charles were discussing the prospect of getting a blood sample from
Keiko. By taking the sample then, the markers indicating Keiko’s blood oxygen levels
and other indicators of physical fitness could be measured more accurately. If we
waited until our return, our star athlete would already be in recovery from the exertion.

Reaching south, we finally came into the lee of the barrier island Bjarnarey, where
the wind and surface currents laid down. Michael brought the
Draupnir
to a full stop but kept the motors running and hovered her, to the best of his ability,
in a stationary position.

Behind me, Robin and Tracy prepared the butterfly needle and syringe as I asked Keiko
to present his flukes in the voluntary upside-down position, a routine behavior in
his repertoire. As Keiko
rolled ventral and drifted to my left, I reached out to grab the leading edge of his
massive flukes. This required no small amount of effort even in still waters. Amid
the contrasting movement of light chop and the
Draupnir’s
opposing shift, the effort required some modification. Robin tied a short loop and
put the line around my chest. The added leverage enabled me to lean farther out from
the platform. Anchored by the rope, I could use both hands to grab hold of Keiko’s
right fluke and pull it to the edge of the platform.

With the white underside of Keiko’s fluke shining in the sun and nearly in my lap,
Robin joined me on the platform blood kit in hand. He is one of the most proficient
technicians at taking bloods on marine mammals that I have witnessed. It’s a talent
that was especially beneficial under the confounding shifts of boat and whale.

Holding the syringe between his teeth, and the butterfly needle in his right hand,
Robin steadied himself with his right elbow on Keiko’s fluke and his shoulder pressed
against mine. With his left hand he took the alcohol swab from Tracy and cleaned the
spot where he planned to insert the needle. In the process he located the most conducive
vein. Satisfied that he had the ideal spot, he locked his right arm through my left.
He then inserted the needle while pressing the ball of his hand against Keiko’s fluke
to steady his approach. As Robin worked, his concentration was like that of a diamond
burglar cracking a safe, feeling for the familiar punch through the exterior wall
of the blood vessel. Without fail, Robin hit the blood vessel on the first attempt,
evidenced by the crimson fluid shooting up the butterfly extension tube. It was a
good “stick.” In only a few moments we had ample blood from which we could run multiple
tests.

Apart from our exertion in the process, Keiko remained quite relaxed, giving us plenty
of time to get what we needed. Robin and Tracy distributed the sample into various
vacuum sealed tubes. Michael and I coordinated the boat and Keiko to begin our final
approach into Klettsvik Bay. This time
Sili
led the way, first taking her crew to the bay pen and then assuming her position
on the barrier net gate. Rather than stop outside the net, we decided to try something
different.

Throughout the entire walk, Keiko had remained faithfully beside his ocean-bound escort.
Taking advantage of the comfortable position, we simply drove the
Draupnir
directly into the bay enclosure, bounding across the boat gate, located just to the
left of our underwater whale gate. Keiko obediently followed, departing from the walk
platform in time to submerge and navigate the underwater opening. Once inside the
bay, he fluidly rejoined the walk-boat at his designated position by the platform.
In practiced form, the crew of the
Sili
responded to Robin’s call from the
Draupnir
and closed the barrier net gate. At that, we concluded the first-ever successful
open-ocean walk with a trained killer whale. From start to finish, nearly two and
a half hours at sea, the excursion went off without a single hitch. Keiko and his
walk-boat logged over eight nautical miles on his inaugural outing to the North Atlantic.

With blasting now completed in Heimaey harbor, things somewhat returned to normal,
or at least what semblance of normal could be achieved within the Keiko Release Project.
The release effort had taken so many turns in recent months there was little consistency
in the day-to-day life of the project. Nonetheless, our mandate of release was now
more poignant than ever.

Boat walks within the bay continued, pushing Keiko to his limits of speed and distance.
If nothing else, our first walk taught us that the conditions of the open sea were
very different from those within the bay. Yes, Keiko could ride waves and thus escape
the drudgery of swimming headlong into a current, but those opportunities were far
and few between in the real world. In the wild, he would have to go where the wild
whales went, and they went where the fish could be found. Mother Nature is not so
kind as to place their very sustenance at the bottom of a downhill run.

Our extended walks within the bay soon saw a return of the strange, abusive, love/hate
relationship between Keiko and his escort boat. He had never even attempted to hit
the boat during our trek around Heimaey just days earlier. It seemed obvious that
we
had unleashed a magnanimous level of new stimulation in Keiko’s world and everything
in its shadow now fell hopelessly short. We knew instinctively that walks to the North
Atlantic must continue. We had exposed Keiko to undiscovered country, the environment
that was, after all, the endgame in the progression toward release. We had opened
a door and taken a step through that door. Going backwards by continuing to create
history within the bay ran counter to every hard-earned step leading up to this pivotal
phase.

Ongoing construction in the harbor provided the excuse for more excursions to sea.
After the initial blasting, several rounds of pile driving were required to complete
the foundation of the new dock. Reverberating jarring sounds and pressure shocks for
sustained periods were no less threatening than the opening volley of explosions.
Though blunt by comparison to the violence of blasting, persistent exposure to pile
driving would be akin to water torture, a slow psychological punishment. Because we
had laid the groundwork, approval to continue the walks during the pile driving was
swift by comparison. That Keiko returned to the bay reliably in the first walk carried
equal weight in securing consent.

Our second journey to sea led us in other directions, with more playful undertones
and experiments too enticing not to attempt. Within just one or two nautical miles
due east out of Klettsvik, we decided it was time to see how fast Keiko could swim.
We had practiced and tested him in short bursts within the bay before, but even the
bay wasn’t big enough to allow the
Draupnir
to get up on a plane. Here, we had nothing but the beckoning call of the horizon
off our bow and thus an unlimited runway. At her best in calm, conducive waters she
could muster up about twenty-eight knots with a full crew compliment onboard.

Here we were at sea in the North Atlantic, a killer whale as our playmate. Even the
relentlessly safety-conscious Michael was brimming with anticipation. Jen perched
in her usual spot above
the pilothouse, Robin behind the cabin on the aft deck and Tracy behind my perpetual
bouncy ride on the platform, each found something solid and grabbed hold. Keiko, ever
dependable, coasted along our starboard side, barely out of my reach.

Steadying myself and wearing the grin of thieves, I nodded at Michael, then quickly
turned to give Keiko a prompt with the target pole. Michael punched up the throttle
just as I dropped the target back to Tracy and latched myself onto the line holding
the platform. Keiko disappeared from sight almost immediately. In seconds, we were
on a plane and clocking twenty-six knots, nearly full steam ahead. Having lost visual
contact with Keiko, we realized he could not keep up. Yet there was no sign of him
in our wake. At best we held our speed for no more than a quarter of a mile, finally
giving in that we would have to wait for Keiko to rejoin his escort.

Michael smoothly dropped back on the throttle. The
Draupnir
gracefully slowed and nestled herself down snugly to the water-line. As we came to
a stop our moderate wake caught up with us and lifted the stern of the boat in the
process. At that same moment, Keiko surfaced alongside the platform announcing his
presence with a stiff whale-sized breath.

“Holy crap! He stayed with us!” I exclaimed.

“Whoa …” Michael’s expression was drawn out with disbelief.

“Did anyone see where he was?” Tracy asked.

Jen answered first, “Nothing from up here. As soon as we picked up I lost him.”

“Nobody saw him come up for a breath? That was a pretty decent distance!” I couldn’t
imagine that he could make that sprint on a single breath.

“He was
right
there,” Tracy said, adding, “It’s like he stayed right with us. No way he could catch
up that fast.”

Finally Robin chimed in on the parade of reactions; he was ready to solve the mystery.
“Let’s go again, this time a little longer.”

So we did.

Again Keiko popped up alongside the starboard platform the instant
Draupnir
slowed. We were stunned. Never in our wildest dreams did we imagine that this whale
…
this
whale … could emerge from twenty years in the care of man and magically exalt to
the physical prowess of an Olympic athlete. No matter the preparation and exercise
of our past many months, a sprint at this pace and distance was impressive by any
measure.

Still mystified, we tried again. This time we wanted evidence. In both of the first
two dashes, not one of us had seen Keiko. We imagined he must be running deep to a
more hydrodynamic position, his body compressed at depth and rifling through the water.
At least that much would explain the energetic overcompensation when he surfaced bigger
than life at each of the two finish lines.

Eyes wide, alert and fixated on the boundaries of the walk-boat, we were hell-bent
on being witness to the feat. After all, seeing Keiko move that fast would be a trophy
for the ages. This time, I quickly moved from the platform and stood atop the sponson,
grasping the top rail of the pilothouse. From here, I had a much better view of Keiko.
I expected to track his first movements for some indication of where he made his escape.

Again the
Draupnir’s
twin engines pitched up to their drumming howl. Again Keiko immediately vanished
amidst the white wash pushed off the side of
Draupnir’s
bow.