Let Your Whale Flag Fly!
When I was little, I use to worry for whales because they breathed air but lived under water. I imagined their lungs always aching as they swam around the ocean. Or, what if they got lost in the joy of exploring and ended up too far down in the sea to make it to the surface in time to take a breath? That realization would be a horrifying moment. It would be a nerve wracking life to always have something you needed to do in order to continue living. Whales can't really get lost in the moment because every half hour they have to stop what they are doing to go get more air. What I wonder is, what do they do when they sleep. Do they only need to sleep in half hour spurts? Do they sleep while floating on top of the ocean's surface so they can breathe naturally while they catch their z's?
I went to a college that was big on the natural sciences. By the forestry building there was a skeleton of a whale. It was really neat, although I think it was a skeleton of a baby whale so it didn't give quite the real impression of how big they can get. The largest whale (and largest mammal!) is the blue whale and they can grow up to 105 ft long. I saw a picture of a blue whale size chart, comparing the massive animal to other creatures usually thought of as large. The t-rex was just a measly little thing compared to the blue whale. Of course I've never seen a real t-rex (YET!) but I have seen skeletons at different natural history museums and they always look gigantic, with their huge toothy skulls leering down at all their spectators.
I've seen live killer whales (which I guess are technically part of the dolphin family, just like tomato's are technically fruits. But I guess dolphins are technically toothed whales, so orca's are more like squares. Squares are rectangles, but rectangles are not necessarily squares. And dolphins are toothed whales, but not all toothed whales are necessarily dolphins). I've never seen an orca close up, but I have seen their big dorsal fins bob up and down as they traverse the sea in roaming pods.
Once I had a dream that I had a pet whale that I rode around. I think I had that dream right around when that movie 'Whale Rider' came out. So the trailers for the movie probably influenced that dream. It was a cool dream though, so I guess I should thank the 'Whale Rider' trailers for their positive influence on my subconscious.