On the water

Leslie and I went out whale watching yesterday in Oceanside. We go frequently but this was the first time we had taken the five o'clock cruise at Oceanside Adventures and it would be the first time on the new boat, the Nala.

The reason we went is that there have been an average of ten blue whale sightings a day out of Oceanside and we had never seen one. we usually see fins, humpbacks and greys.

The blue whale is the largest animal on earth and the largest animal that has ever been on earth, including the dinosaurs. The width of the tail is twenty five feet. They run about 90 feet long in the northern hemisphere, slightly larger in the Southern. 

They are a little longer than the fin whales we typically see but have much more body mass and are not as fast.

We saw two yesterday but mainly waited around for one who had a rather atypical dive pattern. He was going down for about twelve minutes between dives, at about six hundred foot depth. There is a lot of krill off shore right now and the blues are hanging around.

I missed a nice fluke shot, fumbling around. Snapped a few pictures, nothing epic. They are not as dramatic and out of the water as the humpbacks, my favorite.

This is a dive sequence:

It felt good to be out on the water, as always. I think I like the older boat a little better for viewing but this one is very smooth.

We hardly saw any dolphins, which was surprising but did catch a school at the end. Nice evening.

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We saw this pretty little crab near the pier. It was dark and this was shot at 14,400 iso so I am pretty happy with the snap.