New Year's Day Whale Watching Adventure

For the first time in all the years we've lived this close to the ocean, this past Saturday, New Year's Day itself, was the firist time Corrie and I ever went whale watching. Or rode in a boat that wasn't headed to Catalina (or home) out of our local marina.

We generally spoke about taking one of the evening booze-cruises, or taking the water taxi across town to the brewery near the OC border, but we never really worked it out. And now with two kids...? But whale watching is perfect for the kids. Mostly.

The boat rocked up and down in the normal fashion boats do, and for the first time in many years I felt a little green. I wouldn't have guessed it, but my stomach felt less inclined to put up with the trip. Another aspect I wasn't prepared for was the constant fear that my kids would end up thrown overboard, especially out of my hands as I held them.

Such an irrational fear, but it persisted for the duration of the trip, making for a stressful journey.

As the vessel made it out of the harbor, we caught a glimpse of our skyline and the crane next door to us. We walked all along the ship, top level and bottom, inside and out. We tried to hold a table for as long as we could, and eventually left our stuff on it as we'd venture into the wind to see what there was to see.

Which was...something. The first time we spotted anything was as we were off of the RPV peninsula, the landmass that juts out into the sea and separates Santa Monica from Long Beach. I was up at the front rail holding Camille and someone said something about dolphins. I perked up and started to look all around. Eventually the dorsal fins and body-tops became more visible, and as the boast slowed to a creep, the pod came our way.

Common dolphins, with the black and white coloring swam right up to the ship, and Camille even got to see them (as I held her precariously over the railing).

Soon everyone was on deck and oohing and ahhing. 

Later, out the port window, I caught the blow of a large baleen specimen and grabbed the kids to come with me outside. We saw a few more times, over the next twenty minutes, the spouts and backs of some migrating grey whales, generally a rare sight in our area. Some baleen whales are rather common at different times of year around here, but the aquarium lady doing the announcing said the grey whales don't get seen all that often. So, treat for us!

I didn't get any pictures of any of the marine mammal action. But I did get a nice sunset:

Afterwards, we walked back to pick up dinner and then home, and got to show the kids the lights on the walkway above Shoreline Blvd, a path we take often, but in daylight:

It felt nice to try and start the year off with something different and nice.

Happy New Year!