Killing Keiko

by Mark A. Simmons

  Except for Charles and Michael, everyone wore his customary splash suit or Mustang survival suit, the only attire that would keep a person alive long enough to be rescued from the frigid waters. The bright yellow or bright orange of the survival gear bespeckled the decks of each craft, granting a semiformal appearance to the nonuniform flotilla of vessels making up the walk-formation.

  Siti, his father and Ingunn comprised our land-based lookouts, filling the waterborne gaps in communication. Their primary responsibility was to spot killer whale pods in the vicinity of Vestmannaeyjar and relay their location and heading to the Draupnir. They would also provide cell phone backup if by chance the walk formation was out of marine radio range from the island base.

  Finally, perhaps the most anticlimactic yet vital position in the chain of responsibility was standing alongside the harbormaster and coordinating the exact moment of the blasting. This duty was entrusted to the wise and reliable diplomacy of Gummi. The plan did not stop short of distance alone. Taking no chance, we would ask Keiko to spyhop at the instant of the blast to doubly ensure that the event would not spook the Big Man while so far from our base sanctuary. Gummi had to communicate that moment with precision.

  Identical in form and function, we began Keiko’s first adventure to his home waters just as we had rehearsed two days prior, only this time we did not stop at the mouth of the channel. Heppin was our scout, ensuring the way forward was clear of shipping traffic and/or killer whales. She advanced out of the channel and immediately turned to port on a north-northeast heading, roughly a half nautical mile off our bow. The Draupnir, with Keiko in step, emerged from Klettsvik next, crossing the disorganized chop at the top of the channel. After securing the gateway and picking up the bay pen crew, Sili brought up the rear of the formation. The least seaworthy of all the boats, the Sili would be an exhausting ride for her passengers.

  As we rounded the northern most point of Heimaey, the waves turned to a following sea that slightly outpaced the Draupnir, the distance between the peak and valley of each almost twelve feet. Without skipping a beat, Keiko moved out, away and clear of the Draupnir’s lee, riding the sizable swells on each downward run.

  From my position on the platform, I had the most remarkable view of Keiko’s first foray in the wild blue yonder. Immediately a natural, he swam with the current on the rise of the swell, then placing his flukes in an upward position, sailed effortlessly down the other side. The vision was surreal. Within the vastness of the clear surface and deep blue depths beneath, Keiko was again dwarfed by his surroundings. Watching him on the waves, more proficient at each repetition, our charge looked as if a child on his first playground slides.

  “That’s unbelievable. He’s totally riding the waves!” I exclaimed to anyone within earshot.

  “Man, you gotta love that. He looks right at home,” Michael added through the open porthole of the pilothouse. “Look at him.”

  Peering over his shoulder up at the crow’s nest, Jeff asked, “Jen, are you getting this?”

  “Yep, although it’s going to be nauseating to watch,” she replied as she tried to steady herself and thus the helmet-mounted camera. In her position atop the pilothouse, the fore-and-aft pitch of the Draupnir was greatly exaggerated.

  In the background, Michael radioed to the support boats, describing the scene for their mutual benefit. The engine pitch of the walk-boat vacillated between the uphill effort followed by a downhill idle as she navigated atop each passing swell. Keeping her on a straight line was not easy, as the following seas continually attempted to turn her broadside to the waves.

  Turning further to port, we steadily made our way to a more northwesterly heading, staying only roughly half of a kilometer from shore. At this, the swells breaking around the eastern extents of the island laid back down, the following current gradually faded to a minor chop in the northern lee of Heimaey. Keiko then had to work to stay abreast of the walk-boat.

  Thus far, we were holding about four to five knots. As the walk turned from wave-riding enrichment to slogging exertion, Keiko slowed and repeatedly gravitated to the underside of his man-made escort. Here he could ride the Draupnir’s slipstream created by the hull pushing through the water. This would not do. If he were to survive the open ocean, he would not have a crutch by which to traverse the grand distances required for survival.

  “Robin, can you reach the target pole?” I asked, my free hand outstretched in anticipation. “I’m going to reposition him, keep him about ten feet from the side where he can’t cheat off the boat.”

  “Let me know when you want me to toss fish,” Robin relayed. He knew I would not be able to simultaneously work the target, hold on to the platform’s topline, and toss food to Keiko.

  “Okay, on the first bridge for sure, then I’ll stretch it out. We’ve got a long ways to go.”

  At the prompting request of the target, Keiko obediently shifted position and touched the small buoy with his rostrum. The achievement was not made easy by my clumsy effort to hold the target steady between the chop and the awkward pitching of the platform. I bridged, and Robin immediately tossed a herring about six feet in front of Keiko. He completely ignored the herring that swiftly disappeared in our wake.

  “Let’s try again. I’ll get the target completely clear before you throw the herring so he’s not focusing on me.”

  On the second attempt Robin threw the herring with more force, causing a better disruption in the surface when it landed. This one Keiko grabbed.

  We carried on this way for the better part of four or five nautical miles. At random intervals, I prompted Keiko’s position further out from the Draupnir, anticipating when he might attempt to ride in her slipstream. Periodically, we’d provide the occasional herring or two, but mostly we only gave the familiar “thanks” of the whistle bridge. We needed to save the majority of Keiko’s feast for his return to Klettsvik. We also learned that a slower pace was more conducive to keeping Keiko in the proper position off the starboard side of the boat. At lower speeds, there wasn’t much of a slipstream by which he could take advantage.

  Shortly after 1030 hours, over an hour at a steady pace of three to four knots, we reached the northwestern most point of the island, our plotted destination for the blast avoidance. The Draupnir took up a stationary position but did not assume the neutral stance of encouraging exploration. This time, we kept Keiko at the platform in preparation for the blast in Klettsvik. Heppin and Sili stood off approximately a quarter nautical mile in opposite directions. The crew of each vessel was intently watching the watery horizon surrounding the vicinity for other boats or killer whales. So far so good. The water’s surface was calm enough to make sighting of other marine mammals ideal. Our land-based lookouts spotted a small pod of wild whales during our trek. Luckily, they had been on a steady northern heading moving well away from our location.

  Charles was on the cell phone, presumably with Gummi, coordinating our readiness and awaiting the countdown from the harbor master. From the extended platform, I put Keiko through the paces, requesting a battery of voluntary husbandry behaviors. The exercise was partly a test of his attentions in the new environment and partly to keep him focused on me. Not knowing the exact timing of the blast, I needed to keep him close and ready to engage in the spyhop we had planned.

  “One minute,” Charles advised Robin, holding the cell phone to his ear.

  At that, I held Keiko close by the platform, his rostrum on the flat palm of my hand, targeting him in a ready position with his head up and above the surface. This forced him to move his body into a vertical position.

  “Thirty seconds,” Charles continued.

  “Count down from ten please,” I requested. It would take me that long to get Keiko to respond to the target.

  “Ten—nine—eight—seven—”

  Extending the target out from the side of the boat, I tapped Keiko’s rostrum lightly and moved the target no more than a foot and a half above his head. The request was high e
nough to clear his ears above the surface, but not so high that he couldn’t hold the position for a sustained few seconds.

  “Four—three—two—”

  The timing was just right. Keiko responded in coordination with Charles’ relayed count and rose from the water touching the outstretched target. The brilliant white of his underside lit up in the sunlight as he reached high enough to bring the top third of his giant black pecs out of the water. He held the position, undulating his body to remain in contact with the target, dutifully awaiting the expected whistle bridge for a job well done.

  “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.

  Three by Three

  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 rid
e 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.