Yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me...
For Christmas Cody got me tickets on a whale watching tour and yesterday was the day! We got a babysitter for the occasion and we had such a good time seeing several gray whales. We happened to claim a part of the railing with the best view. The first couple of whales we saw were just right in front of us. We saw spouts and tails pretty close and we also saw several whales spouting off in the distance. In December this same captain and boat got to see killer whales!!! I was really, really, really hoping we would get to see some too but I guess that was only the 2nd time killer whales have ever been seen near San Diego. On the tour the captain told us these killer whales were from the southern hemisphere and that they sometimes feed on the young slow-moving gray whales but they are very rarely seen in this part of the Pacific.
There is a tail fluke in all that grayness (click on the picture to see it larger). Our camera just doesn't do it justice. That tail fluke is probably about 12 feet wide. It was amazing to see. We actually did not take many pictures because we were watching them with the binoculars.
It was a beautiful day!
Coming back this was our view of the San Diego sky line.
And here is a video of the last whale we saw. The captain was great at helping everyone on the boat see the whales but in this video he is a little annoying.
Cody's Two Cents:
I have to share something that Emilee and I couldn't help but marvel about while on the whale watching cruise... we had on board some whale 'experts' from the San Diego Natural History Musuem. During the cruise they gave a presentation about Gray Whales and one of these individuals said that an Adult Gray Whale will eat 4000 tons of food per day! That is 8 million pounds of food a day!! To put that in perspective below is a picture of the U.S.S. Regan (which was docked in San Diego bay) which weighs 103,000 tons, it would take a Gray Whale 26 days to eat the mass of this air craft carrier. Can you imagine eating 100 times your weight each and every day? Wow!!
6 comments:
That's pretty cool! I remember doing that in 5th grade and it was pretty cool! How fun! :)
We went on a whale watching cruise on our honeymoon. It was AWESOME. We had a really cruddy camera back then so the pictures are so bad it's funny, but that ride is one of my favorite memories.
I can totally imagine eating 10 times weight in snickers bars! -Sam
4000 tons of food per day!?!? That lady either did not have a clue or she misspoke. 4000 tons?...
Did anyone used to watch Wheel of Fortune? I'm remembering a jingle: "I'm a WHALE watcher..."
Fun Christmas gift!
Think of all the poop if that's how much they eat in a day. I understand what your saying with the picture not doing it justice. Our whale watching adventure was the highlight of our Alaska trip. Glad you had a fun date too.
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