Monday, September 5, 2016

So....after a long hiatus from the blog, here's what we've been up to. Whale watching in Monterey, hiking in the Sierra Nevadas around Lake Tahoe, and an all day hike up Half Dome in Yosemite National Park.

We were in Monterey in May and there had been lots of sightings of whales, so we decided to go whale watching.  Mike has not been whale watching since getting very seasick the last time we went out, but he decided to give it another go. Daughter #2 and her boyfriend went along with us.  The two days prior to our trip, the water had been smooth as glass but the day we went the water was pretty choppy.

We usually go with the same company each time because we like their boats and because the owner works with National Geographic. Unfortunately they recently acquired a catamaran and we went out on the catamaran instead of one of their regular boats. I think that if the water had been smooth that day, there would have been no problem with the catamaran, but the choppy water combined with that type of boat made for a very rough ride. About 95% of the people on board got seasick including our poor daughter. Luckily Mike did not get seasick this time.

We did see some whales - a couple of blue whales pretty close inside the bay, and then a couple of humpbacks too.  We took off across the bay toward Watsonville and found a humpback that breached really close to the boat, a sunfish or mola mola as they're sometimes called (first time we've seen one of those in the wild), and several dolphins came to play by the boat.

Not the greatest day of whale watching due to the rough water and everybody getting sick but I did get a few good pictures. Our daughter swears she will never go again, poor kid!

We also went to the Monterey Aquarium and Point Sur Lighthouse while we were in Monterey.

Next up: Hiking!

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