It Was a Fluke

Time, the dark whale
Spouts blithely from his spiracle
A jet of memory that makes glad the sun.
-William Rose Benet

Some years ago I had been in San Diego for a conference and a whale watching trip (a bonus attraction to the deadly dull and overly intense conference - some people take themselves WAY too seriously - we weren't rocket scientists or brain surgeons) was planned for interested attendees. But the weather changed. A storm blew up that was so powerful, no boats left port the day we had hoped to see ocean life. I had not really thought about wanting to go out in a boat to search for hours for whales before. It had been a whim, but it went on my list then.

Other opportunities have resulted in actually getting on boats and whale sightings -  Fin whales with DH and YC  about 4 years ago and then a Minke whale with DH last year. This last trip (on a Zodiac boat - small - 6 passenger) had included views of scores of dolphins* and other sea creatures, as well as hundreds of shore birds.

During our recent trip to southern California we suggested a ride on the Zodiacs to YC and JF and they agreed to head to Balboa Island with us.

One of the gulls** hanging around.

We headed out to a spot where Grey Whales had been spotted.  We resisted the urge to shout "there she blows," as we saw the spouts. These whales did not show more than their backs and we followed them a long time before we headed much further out where our captain had spied the "blow" of what he thought was a Humpback whale.

Terrible, but the best photo I got of the Grey Whales. They did not cooperate.

On our way out a Brown Pelican paralleled the boat. I looked him in the eye. He was about 15 feet away.*** Then he flew on to feed with the hundreds of California gulls, Cormorants and other seabirds.

My pelican friend.

For most of the rest of our trip we followed the Humpback and watched as he**** dove over and over. And I finally saw the fluke when he dove deep.

We would see the whale's back.

There were some shallow dives, but more hump showing meant a deeper dive.

And the tale would come up.

We would see the flukes.

Sometimes quite a bit of the tale showed.

And on the final dive...

We could see the water dripping from the flukes.

And the lighter color of the underside of the tale.

The lazy sea lions greeted us on our way back to port.

The usual suspects "sing" us back home.

 
The gulls and pelicans lined the breakwaters and watched as we slowly moved past.

Part of the brakewater.

Detail showing some of the "watchers."

Wonderful trip!

Cormorant?

I should know...

NOTE:

*Really -  hundreds, maybe a thousand, common dolphins - incredible!

** I took a look at the gulls on the eBird list - more than 12 varieties commonly in the area at this time of year. Madness. I counted over 150 California gulls and more than 200 gulls I couldn't see well enough to identify.

***I fumbled with the cell phones and missed the photo...but I still see him in my mind. Messages from beyond, I think.

****OK. I don't know if it was a he or a she.


Other photos of our visit:

Pigeons were all over the place.

DH, YC, JF - my companions on the boat.

Our boat

The Ferry at Balboa Island. I have watched it before, but this time we went for a ride!

We killed time waiting for our whale adventure. We did not ride any of these rides.