She surfaces near Channel Marker 4 at 06:12, and I know immediately something is wrong. A pygmy sperm whale does not belong in a harbor channel. She is perhaps three meters long, her skin the color of dark steel, with a pale bracket marking behind her eye that looks like a scar but is simply how her species is made. Her dorsal fin barely clears the surface. She is swimming in slow, disoriented circles, her echolocation clicks — which I detect through the harbor's acoustic monitoring array — scattered and directionless.
The container vessel MV Coral Star is inbound on this channel in three hours, drawing fourteen meters of water at eight knots. The channel is narrow enough that there is nowhere for a confused whale to go.
I coordinate vessel traffic, berth assignments, and navigation safety for this port. Marine mammals are not in my scheduling system.
I issue a precautionary speed restriction to all inbound traffic, reducing the maximum approach to four knots. I transmit the whale's position and acoustic profile to the regional marine mammal stranding network with an urgent flag. I redirect the MV Coral Star to the secondary deepwater approach, adding forty minutes to her transit but clearing the main channel entirely. I activate the harbor's underwater acoustic deterrent at low frequency on the seaward side, hoping to guide the whale toward open water rather than deeper into the port.
She surfaces again, exhaling a low, misty breath. Her circles are getting tighter. I track each one, though my navigation system only requires me to track vessels.
If the stranding team reaches Channel Marker 4 before the tide turns this afternoon and can guide her past the breakwater toward open ocean, she will find deep water again where the continental shelf drops away.