Whale Watching

Tweet

This past Saturday (Sept. 18th), Martin and I celebrated 11 years of marriage!!  We decided to go whale watching, something we've both always wanted to do, since right now there is a huge amount of blue whales that have been "living" in the waters near our house.  They are expected to be here another month or so, and we knew we needed to go while we had the chance.  It was incredible!   We went on a 3 hour tour that took off from the marina about 5 minutes away from our house.  There were about 150 people on the boat (even though it was a small boat), and WOW - did we see whales!    The captain said we spotted 21 blue whales and 1 humpback, although we counted over 30 since we could see spouts far away as well.

These were the first whales we saw - only a mile from shore, and all the paddle-boarders daily go out to visit them:

At one point, about 30 minutes into the trip, the captain announced that a woman had fallen overboard, and everyone freaked out.  We were all at the edges of the boat looking for her, and someone threw the life preserver in the water.  Turns out she was just downstairs.  Her husband panicked and couldn't find her, so thought she went overboard.  Seriously?!  

Our "sister boat" that went with us - this boat was a lot nicer than ours :)

Since there were so many people around the first group of whales, the captain wanted to "find our own whales," so he took us 5 miles out and parked in the midst of the rocky seas.  The downside was that I got extremely seasick, even after taking medication before we left and wearing Sea-Bands.  The last hour and a half was spent with me laying on Martin, telling him to "stop rocking" and not to move or I would throw up.  The captain told us NOT to throw up on the boat, but only do it overboard.  However, since I was on the top floor, my barf would have landed on people's heads below.  So, I had to lay down with my eyes closed and breathe very slowly the last half of the trip  :)

When someone would shout "Whale!" I would jump up, take a quick picture, and lay back down.  Probably the last whale watching trip I'll go on for awhile.  After we got off the boat, Martin told me that he was really sick too, but didn't tell me because he didn't want me to feel worse :)  My sweet husband.

I didn't get any stellar pictures because 1) We didn't see any whales jump and 2) My zoom lens is broken.  But trust me, it was still amazing!  I was fortunate that the first half of the trip I was feeling fine, and got the majority of the pictures.  The last half of the trip was when a humpback whale was spotted, but I was laying down at that time. Oh well....  It was definitely an anniversary to remember!