HALF MOON BAYItinerant whale carcass gives golfers, visitors pause
Steve Rubenstein, Chronicle Staff Writer
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Just when the game of golf couldn't get any harder, the dead humpback whale of Half Moon Bay has returned to haunt the 18th hole.
The carcass of the whale, which was first discovered two weeks ago on a nearby beach before being sucked back out to sea, turned up Friday at the base of a cliff below the majestic Ritz Carlton Hotel and golf course.
Golfers could see the whale as they pondered their tee shots. Some golfers said they could smell it, too.
"You're not supposed to think about anything else when you're playing golf,'' said Steve Schwerin of Half Moon Bay. "Golf is hard enough. I know the whale is just going back to nature. I'm trying to concentrate on my game.''
Perhaps it was the whale, perhaps it wasn't, but Schwerin's approach shot sailed into the sand trap on the left.
"I'm trying to be philosophic about this,'' he said.
Philosophies were as numerous as the vultures circling over the 30-foot- long carcass in the late afternoon sun. Dozens of hotel guests strolled along the 18th fairway to catch a glimpse of the whale, which has quickly become Half Moon Bay's most noted visitor of late.
"Things die,'' said Barbara Hodgin, a visitor from Anchorage. "I don't feel so sad. It's the cycle of life.''
Pat Dougherty and his 13-year-old daughter Katy, also from Anchorage, slipped away from a conference at the hotel to look at the whale.
"I never saw anything that big,'' said Katy. "It's sad but really amazing. Mortality is not something I usually think about, not at 13.''
Golfers were obliged to yell "fore" more than once as the whale rubberneckers strolled within range of the flying golf balls, but everyone behaved properly, and the golfers, who had paid $170 per round, were genteel to the hotel guests, who had paid $435 per room.
Golfer Steven Umlauf, who said he was trying not to think about the whale, attempted to hit his tee shot over a ravine halfway down the fairway. Perhaps because of the whale, perhaps not, but the golf ball didn't make it.
"This doesn't make me happy,'' he said.
Sarah Bezmozgis, a visitor who had just arrived from Toronto, said sitting on an airplane all day and looking out the window at the world had made her ponder the meaning of things like dead whales.
"Something that big dies, and it makes you think,'' she said. "Such a big animal. So sad. Anything is sad when it's dead.''
Authorities are trying to decide how to tow the whale out to sea. Earlier attempts to tug the carcass from its other resting place a few miles north didn't work. So far, the whale has been downwind from the fancy hotel, but nothing stays the same, as the whale's watchers know.
"It can be a real health hazard when you have that much material decomposing,'' said local harbormaster Dan Temko.
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