jumped ship, and their marriage.
After the exit of the third Mrs. Balcomb, Ken wasn’t exactly bereft of female companionship. The first generation of whale researchers in the fifties and sixties were almost all men. But by the late 1970s, there were more women than men studying marine biology. Every winter, another crew of mostly female grad students would board the
Regina Maris
at Gloucester, Massachusetts, for a Semester at Sea program. Ken taught them marine mammal biology and oceanography, currents and tides, and all things cetacean.
Ken enjoyed the seasonal ebb and flow of “boat girls.” It was the 1970s, after all, and he’ d come of age a decade before the sexual revolution and had spent the late 1960s in the all-male Navy. But for Ken, the main attraction of life on the
Regina
were the whales. For 12 winters aboard the
Regina
, he tracked the humpback whale migration from the coast of Newfoundland to the Silver Banks of the Dominican Republic, working with researchers at the College of the Atlantic to compile a photo catalogue of humpbacks in the North Atlantic. The highlight of the
Regina’
s winter tour was the Caribbean leg, where the beaked whales lived. From Bermuda to the Bahamas to the Silver Banks, he could count on six or seven sightings of various species—which for beaked whales was a lot of sightings.
• • •
By the time Diane sailed into his life, Ken was 41 years old with three failed marriages in his wake. A loner since childhood, Ken had never shown much aptitude for the shared decision making and compromises that come with marriage. He’ d always enjoyed the company of women, but until he met Diane, his only true romance had been with the sea and with the whales.
The first thing Ken noticed about Diane when she came aboard the
Regina
was her Bahamian accent. A second-generation islander of British and Canadian extraction, Diane grew up in Nassau, went away to boarding school in Canada, and then returned to the islands because she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. After spending her teenaged summers working aboard chartered catamarans and renting ski boats to vacationers off Nassau, Diane knew she didn’t want to babysit tourists all her life. While studying marine biology as an undergraduate in Florida, the best career path she could envision was training dolphins to perform in marine parks. But when she met Ken aboard the
Regina
, a wide world opened up to her. In Ken she saw a marine biologist whose field station was as boundless as the seas. There wasn’t anything in the ocean he couldn’t name and explain. And he was totally comfortable on the water, even in the middle of a storm. That, to Diane, seemed like the ultimate freedom.
Ken was almost 20 years older than Diane. But when they met, he felt like a teenager again. He was swept away by this Caribbean island girl who seemed altogether at home tracking humpbacks through the Arctic ice north of Labrador. Whenever he went above deck, he found Diane—who’ d grown up wearing a bathing suit and flip-flops year-round—wrapped in an oversized down parka, laughing into the headwinds like a beautiful bowsprit sculpture. She knew how to sail, how to tie knots, how to spot barely visible whales surfacing in the dark gray ocean. He was convinced that she must be part mermaid.
When Diane returned to school at the Florida Institute of Technology, Ken’s life aboard the
Regina
faded to black and white. He courted her from afar with letters he illustrated with drawings and photos of whales he’ d sighted from the deck of the
Regina
. After her months at sea, Diane felt trapped inside the lecture halls and labs. She could barely breathe. And the men who flirted with her in class—the ones she used to date and sail with—now seemed like clueless boys.
The week after she graduated with a degree in environmental science in the spring of 1989, Diane showed up at Smugglers Cove to volunteer on Ken’s orca survey.
After the exit of the third Mrs. Balcomb, Ken wasn’t exactly bereft of female companionship. The first generation of whale researchers in the fifties and sixties were almost all men. But by the late 1970s, there were more women than men studying marine biology. Every winter, another crew of mostly female grad students would board the
Regina Maris
at Gloucester, Massachusetts, for a Semester at Sea program. Ken taught them marine mammal biology and oceanography, currents and tides, and all things cetacean.
Ken enjoyed the seasonal ebb and flow of “boat girls.” It was the 1970s, after all, and he’ d come of age a decade before the sexual revolution and had spent the late 1960s in the all-male Navy. But for Ken, the main attraction of life on the
Regina
were the whales. For 12 winters aboard the
Regina
, he tracked the humpback whale migration from the coast of Newfoundland to the Silver Banks of the Dominican Republic, working with researchers at the College of the Atlantic to compile a photo catalogue of humpbacks in the North Atlantic. The highlight of the
Regina’
s winter tour was the Caribbean leg, where the beaked whales lived. From Bermuda to the Bahamas to the Silver Banks, he could count on six or seven sightings of various species—which for beaked whales was a lot of sightings.
• • •
By the time Diane sailed into his life, Ken was 41 years old with three failed marriages in his wake. A loner since childhood, Ken had never shown much aptitude for the shared decision making and compromises that come with marriage. He’ d always enjoyed the company of women, but until he met Diane, his only true romance had been with the sea and with the whales.
The first thing Ken noticed about Diane when she came aboard the
Regina
was her Bahamian accent. A second-generation islander of British and Canadian extraction, Diane grew up in Nassau, went away to boarding school in Canada, and then returned to the islands because she couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. After spending her teenaged summers working aboard chartered catamarans and renting ski boats to vacationers off Nassau, Diane knew she didn’t want to babysit tourists all her life. While studying marine biology as an undergraduate in Florida, the best career path she could envision was training dolphins to perform in marine parks. But when she met Ken aboard the
Regina
, a wide world opened up to her. In Ken she saw a marine biologist whose field station was as boundless as the seas. There wasn’t anything in the ocean he couldn’t name and explain. And he was totally comfortable on the water, even in the middle of a storm. That, to Diane, seemed like the ultimate freedom.
Ken was almost 20 years older than Diane. But when they met, he felt like a teenager again. He was swept away by this Caribbean island girl who seemed altogether at home tracking humpbacks through the Arctic ice north of Labrador. Whenever he went above deck, he found Diane—who’ d grown up wearing a bathing suit and flip-flops year-round—wrapped in an oversized down parka, laughing into the headwinds like a beautiful bowsprit sculpture. She knew how to sail, how to tie knots, how to spot barely visible whales surfacing in the dark gray ocean. He was convinced that she must be part mermaid.
When Diane returned to school at the Florida Institute of Technology, Ken’s life aboard the
Regina
faded to black and white. He courted her from afar with letters he illustrated with drawings and photos of whales he’ d sighted from the deck of the
Regina
. After her months at sea, Diane felt trapped inside the lecture halls and labs. She could barely breathe. And the men who flirted with her in class—the ones she used to date and sail with—now seemed like clueless boys.
The week after she graduated with a degree in environmental science in the spring of 1989, Diane showed up at Smugglers Cove to volunteer on Ken’s orca survey.
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