I promised whales to come, so I must deliver. Sorry, but nothing "spiritual" today--unless you consider the magnificence of creation something of spiritual wonder... hmm.

"So did you see whales?" seems to be the leading question in conversations since we returned home. And the answer is... Ah yes, "Call me Ishmael" (in other words, "Oh boy, did we see whales").

The first set of pictures comes from our special excursion to see whales. In the first photo (on a misty/foggy day), the whale sort of glides alongside our boat, it's larger than the size of a big bus (a really big bus). (You should be able to zoom in on each picture.)

In the second, she decides its time to dive, takes a breath and arches her back to go under.

And in the third, to the delight of everyone on board she waves her tail flukes in the air before disappearing from sight (to the applause of all on our boat).

On the way back to the ship we took a quick detour to see a small colony of sea lions. The video I took is too long to post, so a picture will have to do. You might see the top of a white head in the water near the rock on the far right hand side of the picture. It was sort of obvious that this fellow was not permitted to come ashore with all the others; a bit of male jealousy going on. So he waits and waits, and is probably still waiting there tonight.

And finally, on the way home Dana spotted a whale putting on a show a couple of hundred yards away. So I zoomed and focused as well as I could with the following result.

I don't think I can get any better shot than this without getting really wet. So, to answer question #1 - oh yes. And in response to question #2 - oh yes, if you get a chance to go, go as soon as you can!