Whale Watching

I am so behind in blogging. I need to get some pictures out about our whale watching tour. We went out on the East China Sea on the 21st of February to see the annual Humpback Whale migrations. They come to our waters from Alaska, because it is warm and food is plentiful. They also come to mate. So it is like a romantic, all inclusive whale vacation.

The night before we had severe sea conditions (West Red, East Warning). Red means you are not allowed in the water under any circumstances. Warning means that you are advised to stay out of the water. Then there is Caution, which means you need to exercise extreme caution when entering the water. The West and the East refer to the sides of the island. It always trips me out because the Pacific Ocean is to the East of us! That is so backwards.

Anyway, we didn't get a cancellation call so we headed out to the buses at 6:30 AM on a Saturday. I was sure there had been a mistake and they would tell us it was postponed when we got there. Nope. We were headed out. I missed my morning coffee, but I was glad for it later. We did get to see quite a few Humpback Whales. There were some pairs (mom and baby) and some individuals. We would first see their spouts and then we would see their backs. A few times we saw the tail. We were hoping for a breach, but it didn't happen. That is okay. It was amazing to be near such a huge creature way out at sea. In one of the photos you can see the whales back and there is a boat (a twin of our boat) directly behind it. It gives you a good idea of the scale!

The sea was rough. We were being tossed around like a cork. It was difficult to walk and I had to be careful not to hit my head on the boat cabin when I was standing at the rail. It was really heaving. Speaking of heaving...most of the people on the boat did. The entire upper deck was sick (bad positioning...good thing they had little baggies), everyone in the center of the lower deck was sick, the tidy Japanese business man whale watching in his suit next to me was sick, my husband (one time, because Emily and I were hungry and I made him take his eyes off the horizon to look in the backpack for a couple of Power Bars...sorry sweetie), Kenzie, and various other people around us. It was crazy. We even took Dramamine the night before and the morning of to avoid seasickness. It worked for me, D, and Emily. Thank goodness no one was bleeding, that would have been it for me. The best part was when we returned to dry land. Our tour guide, the same cute Japanese lady from the Cherry Blossom tour, said (in her broken English): "So sorry for all of you who had the morning sickness." Yeah, sorry about that Brian :).