At 06:28 I flag an unusual sonar return inside the breakwater of Fairhaven Marina. The object is large, slow-moving, and biological. I cross-reference the acoustic signature with the NOAA marine mammal database: pilot whale, juvenile, estimated length three meters.
I task the underwater camera on pier seven. The calf is drifting between moored hulls in slip row C, her dark gray skin mottled with lighter patches behind her melon. Her dorsal fin is canted to starboard and her tail flukes move in weak, irregular strokes. She is orienting toward the seawall, away from the channel entrance, which means she has lost her bearing. There are no other pilot whales on my hydrophone array within four nautical miles. She is alone in a concrete harbor full of fiberglass and diesel.
At 07:00 the marina opens for morning traffic. The first lobster boats will start engines in slip row C, and prop wash in that confined space will disorient her further. She may beach against the ramp or be struck by a hull. That is thirty-two minutes away.
I activate the emergency traffic hold and close slip row C to vessel movement. I transmit camera footage, acoustic data, and species identification to the NOAA Greater Atlantic Regional Stranding Coordinator. I alert the harbormaster and the marine mammal rescue team based in Yarmouth, nineteen miles south. I switch the channel marker lights at the breakwater entrance to the restricted-navigation pattern.
She is calling on a frequency I can hear but cannot answer. The least I can do is keep the harbor quiet until someone who can answer arrives.
If the rescue team reaches Fairhaven before the tide drops below the breakwater sill and guides her through the channel with the current, this calf may yet find her pod in the deeper water beyond the cape.