Whales

To celebrate President's day this year Meredith and Jake generously invited me along on a whale watching expedition. I was very excited, because first of all I've never seen a whale, and second because it had never even occurred to me to go whale watching before, and therefore this instantly appealed to my impulsive side. I feel very stifled lately and I've been really just kind of aching to do something a little bizarre and completely unplanned. Whale watching doesn't really cover it, but I felt like it was at least a step in the right direction.

It was a beautiful, warm, sunny day and we'd neglected to bring sunscreen for ourselves or Meredith's baby. Once we got on the boat Meredith made me approach some lady with a bulging backpack to see if she had sunscreen. She didn't, but her husband had some stowed away in his bulging backpack. I'm not sure what that was all about, it was only a two hour trip and it appeared to be just the two of them, so I don't know what the need was for all the gear. That's okay though, I rely a lot on people like that to cover for people like me who are chronically under prepared. (Although in this particular instance it was actually Meredith that dropped the ball and not me.)

We got the baby all slathered up with sunscreen and the boat started heading out towards the ocean. After about an hour our boat pulled up behind another whale watching boat that had already spotted a whale. While we were waiting for the whale to resurface the captain repeatedly issued some very specific instructions for everyone to remain where they were while he moved the boat around to make sure everyone got a good look at the whale. Naturally as soon as the whale resurfaced out in front of us that little bit of advice fell on deaf ears as everyone started shoving and herding up to the front end of the boat for a better view. I must say that it was really kind of cool to see a wild whale, and I was really enjoying the trip.

We had been there for a while and seen the whale resurface a few times when the third whale watching boat arrived. That's when things went south. There was just something about bobbing around in the ocean while looking at two other boats also rocking back and forth that had an astonishingly rapid affect of making me feel like collapsing. I went back to my little bench and put my head down. Jake came over after a while to assess the situation. I was pretty out of it, but he told me later that the sunscreen lady was trying to get him to reach over and press his pop can on my forehead. Thankfully he refused and I was spared having his pop can shoved in my face. I did sit up for a minute to tell him that it wasn't going so well, but I don't remember much of what I said, other than letting him know that I was off to find the restrooms so I could ralph. I found them and had to all but shove some lady out of the way who was just standing in the doorway of the stall for no apparent reason. She's lucky I shoved her out of the way, another 5 seconds and she would have been very sorry for loitering around in there like that. I spent most of the trip back to shore hanging out in the restroom. When I looked in the mirror I was a little scared for myself. I'm pasty white to begin with and I had no idea that it was even possible for me to look that washed out. Once we got back in the bay Meredith said I started to look more normal. They dropped me off at home, and I didn't make it past the living room couch. Turns out whale watching can really sap the energy right out of you. I stayed there the rest of the day and was so leery of food that I didn't dare eat anything again until late that night, but totally worth it to see the whale.