Grayson – Blackbird and Company

The strong water currents swirling around Lynne are caused by distant winds, large waves, gravitation and the spinning of the earth. (pg. 2)
Grunion choose a wave on the receding tide so that it will carry them high onto the beach so that their eggs don’t get washed away. (pg. 6)
The grunion are attracting a school of albacore tuna. (pg. 9)
Lynne overcomes heat loss by swimming fast enough to create heat. (pg. 10,11)
Lynne was hit on her head by a big wave and hurtled into the hard sand. (pg.16)
The stingray can whip it’s tail around and inject the barb and the sheath into the swimmer’s foot. (pg.18)
Lynne tells herself to deal with it because she needs to be mentally prepared for anything. (pg. 20)
Local fishermen occasionally sight great white sharks off Catalina Island, primarily on the west coast of the island. (pg. 23)
Lynn reminds herself that she needs to control her fear so that we can reach her bigger goals later.
Lynn increases lift by pulling her hands directly under her body so that her back and legs can get more sun.
Zillions and zillions of light-emitting zooplankton and phytoplankton make the neon blue sparks as Lynn moves through the ocean.

flabbergasted: surprise someone, very astonishes
improvise: create or perform music or drama without preparation
exuberance: being full of energy and excitement
migration: seasonal movement of animals from one geographic location to another
julep: a sweet flavored drink sometimes containing alcohol
synchrony: simultaneous action or occurrence

If Lynn were to swim to shore , the baby whale would run aground and die. (pg. 36)
a gray whale’s milk is 53% fat, twice as much as the richest ice cream. (pg. 38)
Baby Gray whales develop their swimming techniques with their mothers in the warm blue lagoons off Baja California. (pg. 41)
The vibrissae are like cat whiskers and are used to sense what is going on around the whale. (pg. 43)
Grayson dropped his fluke, using his tail like a brake when the wave caught him. (pg. 51)
Steve and Lynn thought the jetty might be where Grayson had lost his mother. (pg. 54)
Lynn was worried because the lifeguard said that Gray whales are very protective of their young. (pg. 58)
Grayson dives suddenly and disappears when Lynn decides to swim back to the pier. (pg. 61)
The buildup of carbon dioxide in Lynn’s brain caused her head to throb. (pg. 64)
When Lynn dives down 25 feet she discovers a school of bat rays swimming single file. (pg. 66)
Carl usually caught an extra halibut and gave Lynn some to take home for dinner. (pg. 72)
The baby whale turned on his side and looked at Lynn when she didn’t answer him. (pg. 76)

conservative: cautious
diffuse: spread out, not concentrated
metropolis: a very large, densely populated city
abyss: bottomless chasm or depth
enormity: very large scale
pessimistic: tending to see the negative and believing the worst will happen

Lynn realizes that she does not “speak” whale and that any sounds she makes would only be an echo to Grayson. (pg. 78)
Lynn was interested in studying leaders and those who made discoveries and explorers, and people who went against established thoughts. (pg. 79)
Lynn uses the oil rig as a reference point to tell how much drift she is experiencing. (pg. 83)
The purpose of the oil rig is to drill for oil under the sea floor. (pg. 86)
The orange garibaldi would swim around Lynn’s head when she wore a orange swim cap. (pg. 89)
While they are out at the oil platform Grayson dives down 100 or 200 feet. (pg. 90)
Lynn compares looking down into the deep transparent water to standing on the very edge of the Grand Canyon and the bottom is falling out. (pg. 94)
Greg Miller is trying to be the first person to achieve human-powered flight. (pg. 96)
Lynn sees in Grayson’s eyes a brightness, a sense of vitality and gentleness. (pg. 98)
Whales breach to knock sea lice and barnacles off their skin and to communicate with other whales. (pg. 100)
When Lynn lets her thoughts go wild she starts imagining all kinds of delicious things she wants to eat. (pg. 104)
If Lynn’s body temperature drops too low she could get hypothermia and die. (pg. 106)

aria: a long accompanied song for a solo voice often in an opera
intimidate: frighten someone usually into doing what that person wants them to do.
emanating: originate from; be produced by
slipstream: an assisting force that draws something along in it’s wake
chop: the broken motion of water due to wind blowing across the tide.
eternity: infinity or unending time

Grayson rolls over and floats like a runner who had just finished sprinting. (pg. 110)
Common dolphins came and swam around Lynn and Grayson. (pg. 113)
The dolphins begin to do somersaults after they were tail-walking. (pg. 116)
The dolphins encircled the anchovies, working together to herd the fish into a tight ball. (pg. 119)
Lynn describes Grayson as strong and fast, gentle and friendly, trusting and sweet. (pg. 122)
Grayson swims within an inch away and lets Lynn touch him. (pg. 125)
Lynn is afraid of getting out of the water because she is worried Grayson will feel abandoned. (pg. 130)
Grayson looks up and sees all the people and he grunts softly. (pg. 133)
Steve was so emotional he couldn’t speak and he teared up. (pg. 137)
Lynn is very scared because Grayson’s mother swims directly below her and she had never swum with anything that big before. (pg. 140)
Lynn has a new respect for Steve because he was willing to stop and help the whales and because he believed they could find Grayson’s mother. (pg. 143)
Grayson and his mother join a pod of three other whales swimming north toward Alaska. (pg. 144)