The following is an incredibly exciting (lol) exerpt from my almost illegibly scribbled travel journal (I'll warn ya now - it's LONG!):

June 4, 2008

We got up really fargin' early (again) and had another poke around the beach at low tide.  Well, I did anyway, His Lordship was busy on the phone making whale watching arrangements.  Our choices were:  The Balls-to-the-Wall Tour involving survival suits and a zodiac, or the Old Farts Tour, which is on a BIGGER boat with a sit-inside-and-stay-warm option.  I was all for the "balls" choice, but Old Boy could not be persuaded...sigh...insert eye-roll here.

Our tour was to leave at 10:00 am., so we had to present ourselves at 9:30.  They told us on the phone to "dress warmly" - ugh!  After a do-it-yourself room breakfast, we packed up the car and headed.

After about twelve cups of coffee, I was beginning to think that maybe the BIG-boat-with-the-potty-on-it wasn't such a bad idea.

We got there pretty early and farted around in the whale shop and down on the pier/dock/whatever (I'm so nautical!) for a while.  The appointed hour finally arrived!  We had on every piece of clothing we owned, so we waddled our best Michellin Tireman walk up the gangway and boarded the boat.  I ran straight for the top outside deck with His Lordship reluctantly in tow.  "Wouldn't we rather sit down inside where it's warm?"  PFFFT!  Nonsense!!  We (by "we" I mean "I") chose a great spot at the railing and waited for the other passengers to sort themselves out.  After quite a while, we were STILL sitting there...hmmm....  It turned out we were waiting on three stragglers who hadn't yet arrived.  We waited...then we waited...then we waited some more.  After around half an hour, a man, a woman, and a little kid materialized in the parking lot and waved us off.  They had apparently changed their minds.  HMPF!!  They couldn't have changed said alleged minds half an hour ago??!!

So off we set on our awesome adventure!  I was so excited I was clicking photogs of absolutely everything!!  Rocks...trees...water...Old Boy...complete strangers...  The captain came on the speaker thing and told us that due to high winds the open water would be crazy rough, so he was taking us up the coast through the channel.  This sounded rather yawnular to me, but it was very not!

He attempted to rev us up by pointing out such things as "an eagle's nest" (tour-guide speak for "buncha twigs in a tree" and what he referred to as...get this..."wild cows"...wtf??  Is that anything like a mad cow??  How the hell can a fargin' COW be wild??  Get real, Ahab!  He actually went on to explain that the cows are considered "wild" because they lurk amongst the shrubberies and leap out at inopportune moments and startle the locals (okay, I totally made that up).

Enough about wild cows...El Capitaine informed us that we were headed for a place called Cow Bay (oh brother!) where a whale had allegedly been spotted a day or so ago.  At this point I'm thinkin' "yeah right..."  I've heard people say they've gone whale watching and seen a couple of seals and a chipmunk or two...by now I'm suspecting it's gonna be a buncha twigs in a tree and some cows for us.

After a fairly long, spectacularly beautiful boat ride, we arrived at Cow Bay.  There was a smaller boat and a zodiac there ahead of us.  They were sort of milling around, nobody seemed really focused.  This led me to believe that they were doing nothing more than that - milling around.

At this point, Capt'n Ahab got on the horn and informed us that a grey whale had been sighted in this bay the last four days running.  We stared at the bay.  He ahemmed and spluttered some rivetting facts about grey whales.  We stared at the bay. 

Now, I'm not really dumb enough to believe the whale-watching posters you see.  I didn't really expect to see dozens of whales leaping in high arcs just off the port bow waving their flippers at the touristas, and that didn't happen.  What DID happen was a lot of nothing!  Then some more nothing.  Then more.  It would have been really cool if ole Capt'n Ahab had suddenly bellowed "Thar she blows!"  But that didn't happen either.  Just when the passengers were starting to show signs of boredom (nose-picking and whatnot), one of the crew kids yelled "There!"  We all excitedly looked to where he was pointing and saw....nothing!  ARGH!!

El Capitaine chimed in over the speaker, "Yar - there he is!  Over there by that rock!"  A dozen cameras clickety-clicked lovely pictures of...a rock.  Then His Lordship says he sees it and points where.  Now HIM I trust, so I looked and sure enough...thar she blows!!  OMG I about peed myself!  Naturally I was so excited, I missed the shot, but who cares??!!!  I saw a fargin' WHALE!!!  AAAAHHHHH!!!!

The whale surfaced (and by "surfaced," I mean you could see a blow followed by a grey hump covered in barnacles on top of the water for a second or two) a few more times, and, in the end I settled down enough to shoot a couple of photogs, but MAN!  What a BLAST!!!

We eventually had to leave Cow Bay and be on our way.  We were, after all, still a half-hour behind schedule thanks to the Mr. and Mrs. Doofuss and family in the parking lot!  The captain decided that the wind had died down enough for us to take the oceanside way back.  He was hoping we'd get to see some sealions that liked to hang out on a certain rock.  It was gonna be in some rough water but we were pumped for it.  By "we" I mean "me."  His Lordship was frozen solid by this point, so he, along with most of the other top-deckers, bailed and went below to the warm (weenie) deck.

So here we are:  Out on a cool boat on a gloriously sunny (but freezing) day, chopping through some awesome swells, and soaking up some of the most astonishingly beautiful, wild, untouched scenery on the planet!  Me on the top deck yelling WAHOO!! and snapping photogs everytime the boat took a wild pitch, and His Lordship below decks holding fast to a barf bag!  Life doesn't get any better than this!!

We arrived at the sealion rock, but alas, no sealions were in attendance.  We putted around peering and hoping for a few minutes, then gave up and stared to move off.  Suddenly, one of the crew kids yells "grey whale!!"  I looked up in time to see a massive tail fluke break the surface as the whale dove deep.  OMFG!!!  It was beyond awesome!!  The captain came on the speaker again and explained that when you see a tail-lift like that, it usually means that the whale is going deep and you won't see it again.  We waited around anyway, just in case, and we weren't disappointed.  A couple of minutes later, the whale surfaced again!  I was clicking photogs like a madwoman, but in such rough water, most of my shots were of the sky...my foot...somebody's elbow...stuff like that. 

With one final beautiful lift of his tail, the whale was gone.  I clicked and prayed, but the boat was bouncing like crazy and I was SURE I'd missed the shot.  I didn't even wanna look and trash my last ray of hope that I'd have a "fluke" shot. 

It wasn't until later on that night that I got up the courage to look at the 200 plus photogs I'd shot that day.  When I got to the "whale" shots, it was, well...disappointing:  A nice sky shot...click...a really nice water shot...click....oh, look!  another water shot with a possible grey blob in it...click....definite grey blob in the water....click.....wtf is that?  someone's EAR??....click....dammit....click, click....click!!!  And there is was!  My fluke shot!!  Woofarginhooo!!!  Okay, it's not brilliant, but I'm ecstatically happy that I got it at all! 

What an awesome experience it was!!  A total blast!  The iffy fluke shot was just icing on the cake.