LOOKING FOR ALASKA
Standing on the bow of our borrowed 36ft steel cutter, I watched as my four children paddled the inflatable kayak through the iceberg-laden water. The sea had been busy with humpback whales that day and they had been unsure about launching the kayak at first, but with their father’s calm encouragement they had donned their lifejackets and paddled out. I was feeling distinctly less calm as I watched my entire progeny drifting through the freezing waters in the flimsy looking craft. Then, breaking the surface with a breathy sigh, a whale appeared just metres from the boat. For a few moments Kit and I looked on as this enormous beast shared the waters of the Alaskan archipelago with our awestruck boys who could do little more than sit and stare. And then, quietly, the whale lifted its huge tail fluke and disappeared below the surface.
In our early twenties, Kit and I had lived and worked at sea on sailing boats researching whales and dolphins, before running our own boat as a filming platform for the first BBC Blue Planet series.
As our filming contract was drawing to an end
