Can I say "OH MY GOSH!"

Oh what a day!!! I just can't tell you what a fantastic day it was today. But let me begin at the beginning. We got up this morning (actually I was running a little later than I wanted, but that's okay), and did our rounds. Our original plan was to do the rounds and then run in to McDonald's and get breakfast to go and eat at the harbor, but that didn't happen. There were a couple of camp sites that needed our attention this morning (messing, dirty campers) and the a couple of the bathrooms were a mess - so it took us longer than we thought to do our morning rounds. Anyway, we just grabbed a couple of protein shakes and a couple of breakfast bars and headed down to the harbor. It cost us $5 to park, but we got in a parking spot and got in line. We stood in line for about 15 minutes before they were ready to load us. Dan and I headed up to the second deck of the ship - we figured we would have better viewing there. As we were waiting to cast off and get under way - there was the eagle in the picture above just sitting there on the shore line. I don't know if you can see it or not but that is a dog sniffing around behind it.

We started out right at 10:30 and the ship's crew made the mandatory safety spiel then they opened the breakfast buffet - now on the tickets it said there would be "snacks" - well, let me tell you - there were quiches, fruit, danish, bagels, cream cheese, tomato and onion for the bagels - a real feast, along with orange juice. We were glad that we hadn't gone to McDonald's because we sure had plenty to eat on board.

We were out of port for about 30 minutes when we spotted our first "humpy" - the boat stops and we go out onto the observation deck on the third level. Well, we ended up seeing about 4 or 5 different whales at this one stop - amazing! I got some really good shots but I thought you might like to see this ----------------------
a fluke! I got a lot of shots of the whales fluking - and I finally figured out how to get a series of shots - put the setting on "sports" (well, duh!). When you look at the shots on the computer it really shows the progression - the whale "blowing" then swimming along (I have some shots where you can tell how large these mammals are), then the whale starting to bend and then the fluke. Like I said before - It was amazing!

The whale watching boats are only allowed to stay with a group of whales for 30 minutes (they don't want to harass them) so after our allotted time we moved on around the bend into the channel. We saw several more whales in the channel before we saw what the captain was looking for - Orca's - or, as some people call them - Killer Whales.

Now we found a pod of Orca's with at least 5 but maybe 7 in it. There was one HUGE whale that was the protector of the pod and would swim further out toward the boat to keep us away from the main group, and there was a really good reason. This pod had a baby in it that was probably about 3 to 6 months old. The naturalist on board said that she had never seen one so small. This little guy decided to put on a show for us. .........................................

He would jump out of the water -----------------

turn sideways in mid air and then --------------

splash down on top of his mom. He did this about three or four times in a row - it was so much fun to watch him play.

We thought that we might see some of their natural instincts come into play also, as there was a group of sea lions right along the shore line, but they (the sea lions) stayed out of the Orca's way. We watched the orca's for our 1/2 hour limit and then we headed back into port.

We saw several 'humpies" in the distance as we were heading back in, but we didn't go over to them. I don't know if the ship had another tour going out (a cruise ship tour), but they did head back in to port rather quickly. However - it was a fantastic day - I so enjoyed it. I have so many pictures that I could spend from now until next week putting them on the blog - If I ever get to where I have better Internet access I will download them to the web and post a link to the pictures so you can see them, but in the meantime you will just have to take my word for it - it was GREAT!!!!

Well, it's time for bed so I'll sign off for tonight! I hope that your day has been half as good as mine was - take care, enjoy the pictures, and ----------------------

I'll talk to you tomorrow!!!!