Good Food after Horrible Whale Watching

NEX-5 (18mm, f/4.5, 1/40 sec, ISO200)

Today was my third and pretty sure last whale watching trip. First was in Canada 2001 for orcas. We have seen orcas but they were far away and the trip was long and it was biting cold. Second was pilot whales at Tenerife. They looked more like big, slow dolphins. But the worst one was here in Monterey for humpback whales.

On our way out the captain said that it might be a choppy ride and that we can not get out far enough because we can not go full speed because of the rough sea. He did not lie. As soon as we left the harbor area we saw big waves crashing on the shore. The sea was wild. I have never seen this before and I had some rough sailings around Ireland, UK and British Columbia. But this was different. There was another boat sailing just beside us and from time to time they disappeared behind a big wave.

Lot’s of people got sea sick. My wife too. She said that she hopes that the ship will stop soon. I said that it will be worse when the ship stopped and I was right. They stopped because they found some whales. I went to the front of the boat to get some shots. I always  had one hand on the rails. If somebody did not had one hand on the rail for a second the captain made an announcement. It was not hard to get in a good position to take images because a lot of people were to sick to stand up. But it was hard to get the whale in the viewfinder. I used my Canon 500 + 70-200 + 1.4TC to get a good picture but I had to hold the camera in my right hand and was unable to use my left hand to stabilize the lens. My left hand was firmly attached on a guiding rail.

Sometimes the sea looked like a mountain range. There were tops and valleys. The bad thing is that all the peeking through the long lens made me sea sick too. Instead of taking a wide angle shot of the sea I tried to take pictures of the whale. I really regret that I did not shoot some “seascapes” and a short video clip instead. I got one real image of a wale tail before he took a dive. But even this image was blurred. It was a mess.

Now sea sick as well I have joined my wife. She was really sick and right after I sat down beside her she stood up went to the rail and vomited into the sea. I turned away because I was really feeling bad now and looked to the bow where to people are standing on he railing. The very next moment they vomited too at the same time. It was almost unreal like in a comic strip but it was real enough for me. I stood up and just made it to the rail in time.

After we reached harbor we went to our RV first and laid down for a short nap. Then we drove to Panda Express for lunch to fill our stomaches. I think this was my last try. Please somebody remind my when I’m close to a whale watching office again.

Strange thing is that we saw a blue whale once while sailing with a big car ferry from Harris back to the Ullapool / Scotland. And we saw hundreds of dolphins, some porpoises ( kind of high speed dolphins ) and dozens of male Stella Sea Lions while on a Grizzly safari to the Bute Inlet in British Columbia last autumn.