Whales, Ahoy!

Our original plan - a whale watching cruise scheduled for last week - was canceled for weather. Yesterday so was cloudy and windy we were worried today’s reschedule might suffer the same fate but, despite the wind, we were a “go”. 

The ocean was a bit rough, especially when we first got out of the harbor -

Leia couldn’t stop laughing as the boat repeatedly ’caught air’ and splashed back down, spraying her with water - but it settled down the further out we went. 

Our first sighting was a minke whale in the distance. 

We also followed a pair of juvenile gray whales for awhile,

watching as they breached about every 5 minutes.

They stayed a fair distance from the boat, spouting off and showing just a bit of skin,

until finally! we were rewarded with a fluke flip as they headed down to deeper water. 

We saw hundreds of feeding pelicans and gulls, plus another lone gray whale, 

but the highlight of the day 

was the pod of a 1000+ Common Dolphins 

that swam under and around our boat,

racing us,

surfing the waves

and our wake,

and putting on quite a show. 

 How many dolphins can you find?

The crew said that for every dolphin we could see, 

there were 5-10 more under the waves. 

Incredible!

We had such a great time 

and, as usual, Mother Nature had the last laugh. 

Just as they were getting ready to come in for the ride back to shore, a rogue wave surprised Leia and Pop, soaking them both through to the skin. I know I shouldn’t laugh but isn’t she cute, all salty and wet?